How to Win Friends, Influence People
by sparrowette
Summary: And Start Your Very Own Secret Ninja Organization. Three months into Naruto's training trip Jiraiya must leave him behind to go to check on a situation in Iwa, leaving Naruto to his own devices. Naruto thinks everything he did makes perfect sense, Kiri thinks he is a cult leader and Tsunade thinks she doesn't get paid enough to deal with this. 100 drabbles format.
1. Chapter 1

**How to Win Friends, Influence People and Start A Secret Ninja Organization**

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto and I make no profit from this work of fiction.

Many thanks to my beta reader **SpiegelofNowhere**!

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**001. Beginnings**

One beginning was three months into Naruto's training trip with Jiraiya. The Konoha spymaster received a pressing message from one of his spies in Tsuchi no Kuni. Naruto didn't know what it was about; the pervert refused to tell him why he was left to his own devices and more importantly _without any training_ for _two whole months_ – if everything went well. He didn't even know why Jiraiya refused to take him along, because the lazy pervert refused to cough up even that much. So he said Iwa was dangerous, sure, but how was it supposed to be more dangerous than Mizu no Kuni? They had already been there and that place was full of psychos.

Naruto had had his reasons for this uncharitable opinion and it wasn't entirely because of poor Haku. During his first week in the country he had made a few shadow clones to help a fish merchant's cart up from the ravine it had fallen into. The merchant had offered him protection money and, when Naruto had refused, begged for his life, scared he had offended Naruto, and he kind of had, but… Any place where being nice to people got that kind of reaction had to be totally messed up in Naruto's opinion. And that had only been the beginning of it all.

"At least this is far from anywhere important. Even you can't make too much trouble here," Jiraiya said and ruffled Naruto's hair, making him huff in indignation and swat the hand away.

"Just so you know, that swamp village thing wasn't my fault! I don't care if they were high and mighty Kiri chuunin, nobody demands protection money from little flower girls! She was ten years old for heaven's sake!" he protested. Oh yes, that country had made an impression on him all right, just not the kind of impression Naruto would voice in polite company. But whatever Jiraiya was, polite company didn't enter into it. "Those syphilic bastards of a plucked vulture and oyster with the shits, and they got their spines from the oyster and the vulture was a whore."

If there was one plus side to the time he was forced to waste in every red light district they came across, it was that he didn't have to stoop to unimaginative four letter words.

"If you – say so," Jiraiya managed to say, and Naruto was sure that the hitch in his voice was a swallowed laugh. That made the lecture about remaining inconspicuous that followed less than effective.

Makimura was a beach town in the southern Tea Country. Jiraiya said he had to check in with his informants there, but Naruto was sure they were really there just because the only country Tea had land border with was Fire and it was just about as far as they could get from Rain and Sound; he could read map just fine, thank you very much. Blessed by a sunny, temperate climate, Makimura attracted tourists from around the continent. It had long golden beaches, a nice seaside promenade with luxurious hotels, posh restaurants and expensive shops, a war monument to the dead of some historic civil war, several big shrines and of course a large red light district with geisha houses, tea houses, uncomplicated whorehouses, bars and casinos. It came as no surprise to Naruto that the safehouse Jiraiya tucked him into was in the far corner of the red light district, huddled between the wall circling a geisha house's garden and the seashore. It was small, but reasonably nice-looking.

"What, no back gate?" he asked and gave the garden behind the high wall a knowing look. Jiraiya thwacked him over the head.

"Behave, you. There's food for a week stored inside, be mindful of the traps. Your cover's a worker for one of the local merchants, he's my contact. I'll send someone from Konoha to help you stay undercover and keep an eye on you." Jiraiya gave Naruto the merchant's contact information and codes, and the codes he would recognize his back-up slash babysitter from. The he left Naruto to sort through the traps that had kept the house untouched in such neighbourhood. It took Naruto half an hour to figure out how to get past the seal on the door; inside he got scratched by one poisonous kunai and found himself hanging upside-down from the ceiling.

Kyuubi took care of the poisoning, though it still turned his tongue purple and his urine blue. This was Naruto's first afternoon out in the big world on his own.

And there was another beginning, the beginning before beginning, long before Naruto even became genin. The beginning Naruto didn't know had started anything.

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**002. Middles**

Another beginning was actually a middle; two Kirigakure graduation escapees on the run.

Mizushima Konatsu was the eldest daughter of a prominent Kiri ninja family. Both her parents were jounin, likewise her uncles and aunts and she was hailed as a prodigy. She excelled in kenjutsu and genjutsu, she was good at ninjutsu and taijutsu and she was passably good at information gathering; no one ever had any doubts that she would graduate. She was beautiful as well, her hair inky black and her eyes dove gray. She had money, she had two offers for her hand in marriage already, she was one of those people who had everything.

Kaede was another story. He was a clanless, nameless orphan who had signed himself for ninja life after his mother's death because it was the only alternative to living on streets. He was a passable student, but didn't truly distinguish himself in anything, staying in the middle of the crowd by the skin of his teeth and thanks to Konatsu's tutoring. He was frequently bullied because of his feminine name and his teachers didn't really expect him to survive.

He only had one advantage; he was Konatsu's half-brother and for all she wasn't supposed to care about the bastard son of her father, she did. She cared a whole lot.

In Kirigakure the graduating students were pitted against each other in one-on-one duels to the death, and so Konatsu and Kaede found themselves standing at the opposite ends of an empty room. Konatsu wondered if her father was the one who had arranged for this, for Konatsu to end the life of the son he never wanted and never acknowledged. The proctor was standing with his back to Konatsu, redundantly going through the rules and even though Konatsu couldn't see his face she thought the line of his shoulders and the tilt of his head spoke of pity as he watched Kaede. She couldn't afford pity, so she stabbed the chuunin from behind. They then went through his pockets for money, ransacked the Academy kitchen for as much food as they could comfortably carry and ran for their lives. Incredibly they made it into a seaport and into the first ship that left it. It was headed to a Tea Country resort town.

"We will be alright, I promise. I'll protect you. As long as we have each other it's going to be just fine," Konatsu promised her brother and smiled, but she was simmering with frustration at her own impotence. It was a miracle they had made it that far and she knew it.

"I know," Kaede said and smiled nauseously. Part of it was the rolling, sickening way the ship bobbed up and down on the waves, but most of it was that he knew just how unlikely that was.

But even one day of life was more life and without Konatsu they would have put him into the cold ground of Kiri already. There was still life, as long as there was life there was hope and he hoped for a miracle – one miracle had already happened after all.

**003. Ends**

When Mizuki revealed himself to be a traitor it was the beginning of one end. He had a lover, Ono Tsubaki, a kind, warm woman and a loyal kunoichi of Konohagakure who found herself in a very difficult spot after his incarceration.

The first stage was denial. There must have been some mistake_, _she thought_, _he would_ never, _he _could_ never_… _But he had and she didn't know why. Was it for money, had he grown that dissatisfied as an Academy teacher, what it was that Orochimaru could offer and Konoha couldn't? What it was that was so much greater than life as a valuable Konoha shinobi, as her lover? Hadn't he cared any? Anger followed soon at denial's heels, anger for abandoning her, for spitting at her love and trust and for leaving her to deal with the consequences of his actions.

For the first few weeks she became an outcast among her fellow villagers. She was tarred with the same brush as Mizuki, the one who had sold them out for whatever reason. It was a legitimate concern that they felt, she knew that much. He might have taken her into his confidences, she might have been an accomplice, a spy left active even when he had been caught. After all, she had been the one closest to him, the one most likely to notice something was amiss. Knowing this didn't make her feel any better. She was interrogated rigorously and even after she was declared innocent there was a black mark on her record. It wasn't in any official papers, but in people's minds; and if she hadn't already made a jounin, she probably never would have.

"I have been thinking, maybe that was why he turned the way he did. I mean, I'm well aware it isn't an excuse, but I just feel the need to understand even a little," she told Umino Iruka, Mizuki's onetime best friend and a comrade in this mess; even though Iruka was better off than she was. He had been the one to apprehend Mizuki after all. "He was suspected when that missing-nin killed his teammate with his kunai, and even though he was found innocent the suspicion lingered about for years and blocked a lot of advancement prospects."

"That might well have been the start. And it's a reason, but you are right, it isn't an excuse. If we excused him because he was treated unfairly, we would do grave disservice to those who also suffer prejudice, but never lose their integrity," Iruka answered.

They were eating ramen at Ichiraku's and it didn't take a genius to know who Iruka was thinking of. The heat of the ramen broth burned on her tongue and shame burned in her mind. She hadn't ever treated Uzumaki Naruto cruelly, true; but then, she hadn't treated him in any other way either. She hadn't given him the benefit of doubt he shouldn't have even needed. It was only now, after his bravery during the Chuunin Exam Invasion and his retrieval of the Godaime Hokage, that people were beginning to see their jinchuuriki in a favourable light. Having tasted the same bitter medicine, Tsubaki wished she had offered the boy just one kind word, even once. She had learned the value of those the hard way. She had bargained with any higher power that might listen that everything was merely some terrible dream, or even enemy genjutsu, but she was even past that now. She was merely depressed.

"Have you thought about a change of scenery?" Iruka asked her. He was looking at her worriedly and she realized that her chopsticks had frozen halfway from the bowl to her mouth. She took a bite and chewed on the noodles, not really tasting them.

"I hope you aren't suggesting I go missing," she jested, but it fell flat even in her own ears.

"No, but I could give you two month long C-rank mission in Tea Country, no hostilities expected. You could think of it as a paid holiday," he suggested.

Tsubaki took the mission. She was sick of remembering training together with Mizuki, their nights together, the sweet words and kisses and the small, cruel things that occasionally slipped from his lips that seemed so obvious in hindsight. She was tired of looking at her friends with suspicion, wondering if Mizuki hadn't been the only one to harbor treachery in his heart. It was time to put an end to the chapter of her life named Mizuki and two months of fresh air were just what she needed.

**004. Insides**

The safe house that had become Naruto's accommodation was in much better condition inside than the outside had led him to believe. It had been built traditionally, with a hallway that followed the edge of the house, a small kitchen with a stove and a very small oven, a bathroom, an all-purpose room that doubled as a living area, a bedroom, and a dining room, covered by tatami and sparsely furnished. There was a small table easy to carry to the side, a book case, a chest and a few pillows to sit on and that was that. He found musty-smelling bedclothes from the chest. Everything was dusty and his steps left clear footprints on the mats.

Once Naruto got through the traps – some of them were ingenious and he was _so_ going to learn how to set them back up – the next thing in order was to search for dinner. He went to the kitchen and started rummaging through the cupboards.

There wasn't a single packet of ramen in the house.

"What sort of a sucky safe house is this?" he grumbled as he picked cans randomly from the shelves and read the labels. There were cans of green beans, leeks and sliced water chestnuts, there were cartons of apple sauce with seals carefully painted on top to keep the sauce from going bad, and canned peaches in syrup. There was canned chicken and canned tuna and several jars full of spices and from the far end of the lowest cupboard he found a carton that read _Mama's Better Powdered Milk_. Naruto had a feeling this food supply would survive a small scale apocalypse. But no ramen.

"Note to self: go shopping tomorrow," he muttered as he took a can of beans and a can of tuna to make ninja hash, not looking forward to the shopping trip. The shopkeepers always charged him more than other people and the customers would glare. Actually, things had gotten better after he had brought baachan back to the village, but that just meant that now he didn't know _when_ he would get the cold shoulder treatment… But no one here knew anything about him! All they would know what he chose to tell them. Happy with this revelation, Naruto cooked his dinner and ate it. After this, there wasn't really anything to do with his day except prepare his futon, and a new problem came upon him. Boredom

Naruto and boredom. Back in Konoha and halfway through the Tea Country prefecture Iruka, Kakashi and Jiraiya felt a shiver go down their spine for no apparent reason.

Naruto scoured the house for something to entertain himself with. There wasn't much except a deck of cards and Naruto hadn't ever gotten through a single game of solitaire; the only person he lost to in cards was himself. The he turned to the bookcase and looked what it had to offer. There were two Icha Ichas, one with a man and woman in the cover and the second with two women, but Naruto had completely lost all the naughty fun he had at first gotten out of doing something perverted when Jiraiya had made him a proof reader and now he just didn't get what was so great about telling the same plot a hundred times with different names. There were a few romance novels, one book about poetry that made Naruto's eyes cross when he tried to read it, and several ninja manuals. There was one about making simple seals, storage seals and similar, a few about weapon maintenance, something about Art of War that also made Naruto's eyes cross, but the last looked promising.

_From Cleaning Supplies to Warfare; How to Prepare Your Own Explosives, a Training Manual in Kayakujutsu._

Ten minutes and Naruto was hooked. He had only learned that explosions were something that came from exploding tags, and the simple instructions the book was giving him opened a whole new world. Ten more minutes and he was rummaging through the cupboards again, this time in search of the mentioned supplies. There was a bottle of bleach in the bathroom and the kitchen had hot plates, but there were no enamelled steel containers so that was one more thing he needed to shop for. The second recipe needed ammonia and iodine crystals; there was ammoniac for cleaning the toilet, but Naruto didn't even know what iodine crystals were. He hoped they weren't terribly expensive. Then there was the thing with rust and some other powders he wasn't sure where to get to make touch explosives.

"Why don't they teach this at the academy? Doesn't seem too hard," he asked of no one, and looked at the pots and pans at hand. He hadn't expected much, but this was promising to become a learning experience after all.

**005. Outside**

Once the morning dawned Naruto left in search of ramen and employment. The merchant Jiraiya had sent Naruto to was named Matsuzaki Arikko. The old man glared at Naruto when he had laughed at the girly name and promptly laughed himself sick when Naruto gave his own name.

"You are living in a helluva big glass house, ramen topping," he bellowed and clutched his stomach. Now Naruto glared at him, even though he felt this was something Iruka-sensei would have said he deserved.

"It's written with the kanji for maelstrom!" he protested. The old man just leaned against the desk in his office and finally got his snickering under control.

"Yeah, and mine's an herbal remedy," he said. He wore a stupid sunflower-pattern yukata, and liked thwacking Naruto over the head with his cane. Naruto proceeded to sort him under the heading 'Crazy Old Man' in his mind and they got along just fine after that.

The job was paying, which was good because while Jiraiya had left Naruto travelling funds enough to last the two months, he had learned early in life that having a buffer never hurt. There shop was located near the harbor, a good thing considering that the man sold all sorts of imported delicacies like coffee, chocolate, raisins and nuts, fresh fruits, cookies and cheese, and naturally all this was brought to him by ships. There had been a shipment just a few days before and the crates had been moved to a warehouse Matsuzaki had rented, and now they needed to be moved to the shop's storage rooms.

"I can't afford to keep men on payroll so they can sit on their fat asses so I hire them for this every time. How many you need?" he asked and fanned himself with his account book; it was a hot day and promised to just get hotter.

"Heh, none. Just look at this: Kage bunshin!" There were small puffs of smoke and ebbing, chattering noises as the number of Narutos at Matsuzaki's Better Delicacies Shop was raised from one to ten.

"And here I thought you were supposed to not let people know you are a shinobi," Matsuzaki drawled with a voice that could have beat out Suna for dryness. Naruto scratched his head and smiled sheepishly.

"I can get around that too," he promised and applied henge; now there was one Naruto and nine of his fellow genin. No girls because girls didn't really do the heavy lifting in the civvies world and so he had to use Neji, Lee and this guy Gennai from the Chuunin Exams, the one who chose not to complete the first phase so the rest of his team was disqualified, to buff the ranks. He felt kind of bad for making the clone look like that chicken, but not everyone could be a winner every time. And so Naruto and his clones got to work, ducking and darting and climbing and carrying crates between the warehouse and the shop. Kibatwo flirted with Nejitwo to freak Naruto out, but as it turned out, freaking yourself out didn't really work. They had the same sense of humour after all.

Everything went well until the very last crate of nuts, which Naruto carried with his own two hands. Some fifty feet into the busy hustle of the street a man with a messy beard brushed past Naruto, hitting him hard with his shoulder and almost toppling him to the ditch.

"Watch where you're going, punk," the man grumbled on contact, glaring down at Naruto from an impressive height. His biceps looked like whole hams were trying to mate under his skin when he moved his arms.

"You're the one who pushed me, jerk," Naruto snapped back at the man and then things happened really fast. The man moved to hit Naruto, and Naruto might just be a genin, but even a newly graduated Academy student could have cleaned this guy's clock. Naruto didn't even bother doing anything fancy, just jabbed him hard in the stomach with the corner of the crate and marched on while the man was lying in the ditch, moaning. He was humming happily and if people were staring at him, well, he was too used to that to even remember they weren't supposed to do that here.

And being from a village with no organized crime whatsoever, he had never bothered to learn what that kind of tattoos and a missing middle finger meant.

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AN: Maki = Black Pine; Mura = Village; GWG = Grammar, What Grammar? I'm not Japanese.


	2. Chapter 2

**How to Win Friends, Influence People and Start Your Secret Ninja Organization**

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto and I make no profit with this work of fiction.

**006. Hours**

It was precisely four hours into his employment that Naruto became responsible for the shop. It happened like this: Matsuzaki was standing on old, rickety ladder to put new jars of fruit marmalade to the highest shelf when an old lady in posh, embroidered kimono walked in and the lady was walking two little dogs with long, dirty white fur. The colour was dirty white, that was, Naruto didn't think those dogs were ever allowed to get dirty and he pitied them because forcing dogs to remain neat and clean all the time went against some inner dogness. He was crouching to put some crackers to the lowest shelf a bit behind the ladder and the dogs run towards him. And the leashes of the dogs, which had been tied together so they could be easily hold with one hand, were torn from the old woman's hand.

One dog went from one side of the ladder and the other the other. The ladder fell and Naruto leapt to catch Matsuzaki, already congratulating himself for the quick save. But then Matsuzaki clutched his chest and his whole body jerked.

Naruto wasn't a medic by any stretch of imagination. He could bandage wounds, of course, and set broken bones as long as the break was a clean one and even do stiches as long the one being stitched didn't mind them being a bit ugly and uneven, but his poor chakra control had made learning medical jutsu an impossibility and he hadn't ever shown any interest despite his one-time friendship with Kabuto (that rat-bastard!) either, to tell the truth. So he did the first thing he could think of and ran to the hospital, carrying Matsuzaki over his shoulder. Matsuzaki's life was saved which was good and the old lady even paid the hospital bill as the whole thing had been her fault, but that still left the problem of what to do about the shop.

"You must rest, Arikko-baka. You aren't as young as you used to be and you could stand to lose some weight as well. It was only thanks to the speed your employee got you here that you survived at all," a nurse with white yukata and angular, stern face told Matsuzaki. The old man gave him a dark glare from where he was lying down.

"Look, you evil, old hag…" he started and the nurse promptly hit him over the head with her papers.

"Who are you calling old, you mummy! I'll have you knowing, I'll still be a spring chicken when you rest in your grave…" she ranted and Naruto tuned her out. They were obviously old friends and the whole thing made him miss Sakura-chan a lot. Maybe he should write her, now that he was going to have an address she could write back to! That was a great idea! It was after a while that he noticed both the nurse and Matsuzaki turned to look at him speculatively.

"I could go to my niece, but can you take care of the shop?" Matsuzaki asked him. Naruto gave him a winsome smile.

"I worked for a lot of shops back home," he said. He didn't say it was about D-ranks because he didn't know if this nurse, Sakuya, was trustworthy, but Matsuzaki should know anyway and he looked reassured.

"You can leave your foolish employer to me. I'm his niece's neighbour, I'll see to it that he gets plenty of rest," Sakuya promised and ruffled Matsuzaki's hair. Matsuzaki made an offended noise deep in his throat, but he looked kind of happy anyway.

"I'll do very good job, I promise," Naruto said. He hadn't ever been responsible of a whole shop alone, but he had been behind the counter and he could do accounting – he had done his own finances since he was ten after all. So that left carrying things and protecting the place from robbers and stuff, and he could use those seals and traps that had been in the safe house before he went in. No criminal was getting in on his watch.

**007. Days**

That evening Naruto set the traps and drew the seal carefully. He didn't really know why they worked as they did, but no knowledge of that was required as long as you weren't trying to create a new seal; being able to _perfectly accurately_ – and the word perfectly couldn't be stressed too much – recreate what you had already been shown was enough. The next day he went to the shop early to sweep a bit only to find five thugs lying unconscious by the backdoor and the small window next to it. He didn't even bother with taking them to the police, but simply heaved them off to a stripe of wasteland overgrown with weeds between one street and another and was done with it. He then opened the shop for the day.

And he found that wasn't the end of it.

It begun just before Naruto closed the shop for a lunch break. The shop even had this cute little sign with a panda with a speech bubble and he was just waiting for the two housewives and their children, a cute little girl with pigtails and a boy Naruto was sure was hiding a frog in his pocket, to leave. Then two men walked inside. One of them he recognized as the burly man from the day before and he sighed; why did people have to be so bad losers anyway? They were like Sasuke-teme! The other was a little shorter and a little heavier than the first, but they looked very similar, They even dressed alike and they had the same tattoos and Naruto wondered if they were maybe brothers.

But they were both missing a middle finger and that was kind of a really funny coincidence…

"Now you are gonna get it, punk," the idiot from the day before growled. He was crackling his knuckles, but the effort just ended up looking funny because of the missing finger and Naruto smirked. But his smile froze when the women flattened themselves against the wall and the little girl begun to cry. The idiot number two snorted, mistaking his reaction for fear.

"And de womun tew…" he started and leered at the women, but he never got any further. Because if there was something Naruto hated even more than inconsiderate bastards who run away to play sensei and student with evil maniacs who invaded Konoha, the evil maniacs themselves and the evil maniacs' evil, backstabbing medic-nins, it was people who bullied innocent civilian women and kids.

The two men went down easily. One punch for each of them was all that was needed.

It was a strange scene after that. The women in their expensive, pink kimonos were watching him with eyes as round and wide as plates and the little girl stopped crying. Naruto flashed them a smile and made a peace sign. The little boy looked at him with hero worship in his eyes and Naruto felt his heart swelling with some warm, funny, stupid happy feeling.

"I have a frog," the boy volunteered and stepped forth, taking the small amphibian from his pocket. His mother grabbed his arm and pulled him back, giving Naruto a startled look and stammering apologies.

"Frogs are awesome," Naruto agreed and kept his eyes on the boy so he didn't have to look at the woman. It shouldn't hurt so much, but it still did, though the boy's grin made it a little better. Even the little girl smiled and giggled a bit and Naruto gave her a candied apple, and then another to the boy so he wouldn't feel bad.

The women made their purchases quickly and left, but that wasn't the end of it either. When it was time to close the shop for the night yet another thug approached Naruto when he made a shortcut through a small, dark alley. It was a huge, bulky man with a missing tooth and again that missing finger, and now Naruto was sure. Once was happenstance and twice was circumstance, but three times was a pattern already, like Kakashi-sensei always said. The third man didn't give any more resistance than the first two had either, but it was then (of course) that three women in revealing clothes walked past the alley and one of them happened to look there.

She shouted in fright. They all stop dead in their tracks.

They stared at the man on the ground and Naruto standing above him, perfectly unharmed and rubbing his head in a sheepish way.

"This isn't what it looks like," he offered and tried to look harmless. Predictably, their reaction was to scream and run in the other direction for dear life. Naruto drooped.

"What a lousy day this has been," he grumbled.

**008. Weeks**

Makimura was a nice little town, Tsubaki decided when she walked the streets towards the safe house Jiraiya-sama had given her directions to. It was early morning and the chirping of birds drowned out the squeaking and rumbling of what few merchant charts made when they were rolled to their allotted plots for the day. She watched at the sea that glittered in the early morning sun and thought that maybe she would buy herself a swimsuit. This was shaping up to be a better and better idea by the minute. A paid holiday like Iruka had said.

Her only duty was to ensure that Uzumaki Naruto didn't do anything stupid and grandiose enough to attract shinobi attention. The boy's rambunctious nature aside, this was a country without a hidden village or any real political significance. This was the kind of place spies were assigned to as a punishment for messing up somewhere important.

What could possibly go wrong? This was a question Ono Tsubaki regretted asking herself when she realized her charge was in the middle of a small scale war with the local yakuza.

"What you think you are doing, Uzumaki? You were supposed to keep _low profile_, do I need to explain you what that means? And who is she?" she demanded answers from the brat sitting in the middle of the safe house's floor, bandaging the leg of a young woman. She was beautiful enough in that comfortable way that didn't leave anyone feeling intimidated, with brown hair and dark, pretty eyes in round face. It was not the moment to get interested in the opposite gender; in fact, she was beginning to wonder how he had survived to this age at all, let alone become a genin…

"She's Miwa-chan, those thugs were beating her up…" Naruto begun his explanation, but the girl laid a hand on his arm and looked Tsubaki to the eye. The sudden fierceness in the mousy girl's demeanor was surprising.

"They were going to rape me," the girl named Miwa said quietly. "I'm a… prostitute, I work for the yakuza. They take most of the money I earn and they take me whenever they feel like it. Naruto-kun killed those men." Her voice was barely a whisper, but the intensity of it carried through and so did the grim satisfaction. Naruto looked at his hands like he had never seen them before and Tsubaki realized with a sudden start that it had been the boy's first kills.

But the shadows were chased away and Naruto's eyes hardened.

"No one who does that to other people deserves to live! Don't worry, Miwa-chan, you won't ever be going back to those people," he vowed.

Many thoughts were chasing one another around in Tsubaki's head. The incredulous _he was fighting yakuza without killing them, what did he do, arrest them_ was shoved away by the wistful _that girl loves him and he has no idea_, but what surfaced first was: "You will see that many, many people do so and live to do it again." The lecture was even part of the Academy curriculum; ninja sex ed covered the run of the mill contraception, diseases and health risks associated with underage pregnancy, but also rape as interrogation tactics and prostitution as a part of infiltration tactics. This was the kind of world they lived in.

"Well, I'm gonna change that because I'm not gonna change, believe it!" Naruto exclaimed and hit the air with a closed fist. It made Tsubaki sad, sad for someone other than herself, because some things could be changed by no one. But Naruto could save Miwa if Tsubaki let him, he was the kind of person who would. She remembered the cruel whispers that had always followed the boy, Demon Brat gritted between teeth, and he remembered the man who had lain with her under false pretense and how Naruto had been the one to catch him.

It hadn't been rape, she had said yes every time and enjoyed it, but she felt violated all the same. And she had been suspected and blamed, considered dirty, like many would consider whores dirty. Some would claim even in Konoha that it didn't count if you raped a prostitute.

_No one who does that to other people deserves to live!_

"I was Mizuki's lover; did you know that?" she asked. Naruto looked kind of squicked out, but also... gentle? Kind? She wasn't certain she was reading him right.

"That must have sucked. I bet he was a bad kisser too," he said and startled a laugh out of Tsubaki. She wasn't a violent person by nature, her career choice non-withstanding, and she was a bit shocked to notice her knuckles were turning white. She purposefully opened her fists.

"Those yakuza are lucky, Naruto-kun" she mused and looked out of the window, feeling loose-jointed and drunk. Mizuki had struck a fracture into her and she wasn't sure if Naruto-kun had just fixed it or struck her to pieces once and for all, but whatever the case, she had forgotten what it was to feel this good. Outside the sun had finally risen over the roofs. "This will be a beautiful day to die."

It had taken Saehara Hiro, the unquestioned leader of Makimura's dirty underbelly, years to build his criminal empire. It was destroyed in a week. And if Naruto dropped them off to the police and Tsubaki vented her frustration, he didn't seem to hold it against her. She was clever enough to never be caught anyway.

**009. Months**

Time is a tricky, tricky thing, subject to perception. Sometimes days and weeks will fly away like hours and days, brief, fleeting moments. Sometimes even minutes can stretch into eternity, like Naruto could assert from his experiences from the Academy. Two months isn't that long time, objectively speaking.

Matsuzaki Arikko would attest that it took him barely any time at all to realize that the goofy, friendly façade that kid Jiraiya-sama had left with him presented was entirely false. The Chief of Police would claim that those were the longest two months of his life and he never received so many gray hair because of one person before while the prostitutes who at first meekly crept in to meet the new management would say their Naruto-kun left all too soon. They were, after all, very soon former prostitutes.

Even the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. Naruto's journey begun when two missing-nin from Kiri stepped off the deck of a merchant ship, looking for employ and a place to hide.

**010. Years**

The rumours were all over the place; Konatsu and Kaede didn't even need to go searching for them. The word was that the entire criminal world was in wild disarray, that Old Man Saehara had been dethroned and all his men were either dead or in prison and that – this was whispered with exited, worried, awed tone – it had been _real ninja_ who did it!

They were sitting in a dango diner and slowly eating their lunch, but in truth more interested in what the small group of men sitting next to them had to say.

"I heard that Matsuzaki-san is involved somehow in this affair! Who would have thought? He was always so respectable," Person One spoke with obvious relish; he had red hair, mole in the left cheek and distinctive adam's apple.

"I hear the new boss is so young he doesn't even shave yet, that blond kid, remember," said Person Two; brown hair, brown eyes, buck teeth.

"There are two of them, they are identical twins. I saw them in the docks yesterday. But I don't think they are really ninja, I mean, they didn't have those bandannas with the metal plate, whatever they were called again…" said Person Three AKA The Good-Looking One.

"And what normal people run over rooftops?" Person Two asked with a dry voice and took a gulp from his sake jar. Konatsu and Kaede shared a look and finished their meal, leaving the diner.

"So, a missing-nin organization has taken over. Do you think they recruit?" Kaede asked, trying to hide his trepidation. He wasn't the most squeamish person there was – no one in Kirigakure stayed squeamish for long – but some of the rumours about the sort of missions missing-nin got involved in, starting with assassinating little babies and getting steadily worse from there, really, really gave him the creeps. But Konatsu's eyes were shining.

"If they have only just taken over, there must be much work to do. I'm sure I can get us in, and then we'll have safety in numbers," she said, gratified.

Mizushima Konatsu and Kaede had their expectations about how the world worked in general and the ninja world in particular. Those had been built upon years and years of ruthless training and eyeing their classmates with cold (and in Kaede's case, uneasy) eyes, knowing only half of them would survive. Years and years of watching little kids beg for food until they barely even noticed it, bi-yearly death patrols to weed out all Kekkei Genkai users and good, unselfish people like priests and volunteer workers at homeless shelters found mugged and sometimes dead had left them with firm opinion that you could trust only your family and often times not even all of them. Then they walked in to Matsuzaki s Better Delicacies Shop and the blond, grinning boy behind the counter made that certainty crumble.


	3. Chapter 3

**Where People Fail to Understand Naruto And Naruto fails to Understand the Concept of Protection Money**

* * *

**011. Red**

To say that Tsubaki was less than charmed when Naruto-kun returned to the safehouse with two Mist missing-nin in tow was an underestimation. Missing-nin were generally speaking scum, the ones who couldn't keep their violence aimed towards acceptable targets or the ones who sold their loyalty. Kirigakure was a case of its own, as about half of the people who left that place were merely political dissidents or victims of severe abuse of authority, but they were desperate and all too willing to do what it took to survive, even kill people who had considered them to be their allies.

The heart of the average Kiri missing-nin was dead seven times over before they left the borders of their country.

"So this isn't a missing-nin operation?" the one who had introduced herself as Natsu asked. Tsubaki was very sure that wasn't her real name, but she answered to it easily enough that it must be an old alias – or a nickname. "Konoha has interest in Tea Country?"

"I bet half of my graduating class couldn't tell Tea Country from the map. No, I was just dumped here until my sensei gets the important stuff done," Naruto-kun answered, displaying unusually good sense in not giving his sensei's name to these people. He wasn't lying about Konoha's general disinterest in Tea Country either, though he exaggerated a bit. They learned about the Big Five in history classes in detail and C-ranks covered their smaller border neighbor quickly enough, but Tea Country was stable and peaceful and prosperous; not the sort of place that created many opportunities for ninja, in other words.

"Ah, I fear we have been followed, or we will be in short time," the boy who trotted after the girl like a faithful puppy said; his name was allegedly Katsu, but he was more visibly uneasy with it than the girl with hers. Speaking of the girl, she glared him a little, but he raised his chin, defiant and the girl hid a sigh.

So he had more morals and the girl was resigned to it, reluctantly accepting. This bit of information could be of use.

"Can't be worse than Gato or Zabuza or that Dotoo Kazahana creep that bothered Yuki-hime," Naruto-kun waved his hand. Tsubaki paused to consider that Naruto-kun had contributed to the fall of two tyrannical regimes before he had even made it chuunin, but before she could be properly bewildered the girl called Natsu put her tea cup to the table with a loud clink.

"So _that's_ where I had heard your name before. They named the Great Naruto Bridge after you," she said and the boy called Katsu looked at him with admiring eyes. Natsu seemed to be considering something and then things just clicked for Tsubaki.

She hadn't even expected Naruto-kun to be able to protect them, not after actually meeting with him. She could tell he was inexperienced and she probably believed Tsubaki to be merely a chuunin since she followed Naruto-kun's lead in this – protesting non-withstanding, she wasn't precisely trying to make her objections stick – and Natsu had intended to use the two of them as a distraction against anyone who might have followed her and her brother and escape while the dust was still settling. It wasn't a bad plan, but it made Tsubaki see red. That someone would use Naruto-kun like that… She only realized she was releasing a good deal of killing intent when both Natsu and Katsu turned to her, their hands at their weapons. Tsubaki took a deep breath and forced the red across his vision wash away.

"All is well," she told Naruto-kun and managed a smile.

Many would have found it more than a little sad that she was taking her clues from a genin, and genin such as Uzumaki Naruto, but Tsubaki had made her decision when she first bared her blade and she wasn't the type to change her mind according to every rouge blast of the wind. She would wait and see where this unique nindo of Naruto-kun would take them. And if these two thought her to be chuunin rather than jounin, well, the easier it would be for her to kill them.

Tsubaki was willing to give this alliance a chance, but she had sworn to be nobody's fool ever again.

**012. Orange**

Miwa had been a geisha student once. Her father had sold her to a geisha house when she was five years old and she had worked her way up there from a servant girl to a student and even an apprentice geisha, maiko. It was simply her bad luck that the geisha district her geisha house had been in had been an illegal one.

The unlicensed districts were the most popular. There was less standing in ceremony and more fun; often a man couldn't find enough room to sit on the floor of a tea house, this was how popular they were. But while a girl could earn well there, she also had to live in fear that the authorities may decide to close the unlicensed district and then she will have to find herself a new geisha house. This was the draw of luck; they did and Miwa couldn't. If she had already been a full-fledged geisha she probably could have found a place that would have taken her in, but no one had needed an extra maiko and she had to become a prostitute, "make clouds and rain" with any man who would pay for her. She wasn't the only girl in this predicament either; her best friends Aiko and Yuriko were thrown out with her. It was harsh life and she didn't expect to live long. Some disease would surely take her soon, if she didn't starve once whoring cost her good looks or somebody didn't kill her.

Then Naruto came and everything changed. He killed the men who tried to rape her and took her to his house, caring for her. He and the older woman, Tsubaki, took over Makimura from the horrid man who had claimed the city as his turf and suddenly she found she wasn't a whore anymore.

"We could convert it into an inn and a bar," Naruto-kun said as he eyed the house critically. "You can sing and play something, right? Since you used to be a geisha," he asked and Miwa couldn't find it in her to remind him again that she hadn't quite been one yet. It wasn't as if Naruto-kun cared. He simply found her cool.

"Aiko and Yuriko were as well, they can sing and dance there. I would like to help you personally, if you don't mind," she proposed and blushed, hoping she wasn't too forward. She so wished to become part of his life.

Naruto-kun was a ninja. The mere thought made chill go up and down Miwa's back. The shinobi were the stories of her childhood and the rumours important men would whisper to each other while you filled their glasses. Whispers of assassinations and kidnappings, beautiful, seductive women who could wring every secret out of a man and then leave him hanging, sometimes literally, men with so terrible jutsu they could kill whole armies. Miwa had always feared ninja. She even feared Tsubaki-san a little bit. She never would have thought she would ask to become a secretary/assistant/anything to a shadow killer.

But Naruto-kun was kind and sunny. He didn't even dress like a shinobi, but wore bright orange and blue that clashed with it in a particularly eye-catching way. Naruto-kun was her new hero, just as orange was her new favourite colour.

**013. Yellow**

Makimura had recently turned into a right battlefield. There was a boy who was said to be a shinobi of some sort – that mere word was enough to send shivers down even a brave man's spine – and a woman no one had seen up close, a kunoichi and maybe his lover as well, though _that_ rumour made the Chief of Police feel something akin to pity for the boy. _But it isn't an excuse. If I excuse one who does terrible things because he is used, I offer insult to those who suffer the same, yet don't turn to crime…_

There was a boy, there was a woman and then there was a criminal empire in ruin, yakuza in custody, yakuza missing and several yakuza corpses, not to mention a very suspicious testament, but most infuriatingly no proof whatsoever that these people had killed anyone. But now the violence seemed to be over, it was a beautiful day and the Chief of Police hadn't spent a waking moment with his wife for three days. Today was his day off, come hell or high water, ninja invasion or a plague of locusts.

"Good!" grunted Yamamoto Takumo, smiling down at the letter he'd been reading. He was sitting on bench in a park next to a Shinto temple, under the shade of cherry trees.

"Good what?" asked Reiko, looking up from the little princess she was holding in her arms. Ruka was three months old and the apple of their eye; for the longest time Reiko had trouble getting pregnant and they had almost given up hope.

"My cousin Ichiro has finally decided to propose to Hamasaki Kiku. He plans to ask her to marry him next week at the Mermaid Festival at the Seashore Palace." Seashore Palace was the finest – and most expensive – restaurant in Makimura. Takumo couldn't even imagine how Ichiro had managed to get a reservation for that day. Reiko grinned at him.

"Then shall we gather chrysanthemums, dearest, for their table at the festival to help Ichiro gather his Chrysanthemum?" she asked coyly. It was a beautiful day, golden with sunshine and peaceful. Of course it had to come to an end. There was the sound of a girl crying and Takumo turned his head to look. He saw a girl in yellow yukata, standing under red Torii gate, gazing up and tears streaming down her cheeks. A cat had climbed to the lower lintel of the gate and meowed there, obviously afraid to climb down. The girl was tugging the orange sleeve of a young boy and Takumo thought his heart would stop. The boy had bright yellow hair.

The dominant hair colour of people of Tea Country was black. Some had dark brown hair, or even light brown, but yellow was exotic, strange. Even in a tourist city like Makimura blonds were a rare sight. He couldn't see the face, but the girl tugged again and Takumo stood up, alarmed, hoping Satou had the sense to…

The boy known as Satou Naruto walked up the beam of the gate like it was flat ground and not in fact at ninety degree angle to the ground! He quickly picked up the cat and jumped down with a summersault that would have left Takumo with a twisted ankle or possibly even broken neck like it was nothing and handed the cat to the girl. She shouted in delight and pressed the scruffy black thing to her chest and Satou ruffled her hair, smiling beatifically. Takumo felt his insides twist.

"The ones who make a show of being affable are always the worst," his shishou had told him once. "It takes a certain kind of man to murder in cold blood, but the kind that murder in cold blood and then hold charity auction, make nice with cute kids and save kittens is worse. They have something loose in here." He had twirled his finger at his temple.

Takumo couldn't remember a single instance his shishou had been wrong.

* * *

AN: Kiku = Chrysanthemum

* * *

**014. Green**

When Morino Idate heard that Makimura had been overrun by two missing-nins his first inclination was to bang his head against something hard.

Idate didn't like the ninja world even at its best. Once his heart was gnawed by the green-eyes beast called envy, but Naruto had helped him regain some of his lost self-respect and winning the annual race – and a few kind words from his brother! – had given him the rest of it. And even when looked at objectively, life was just that much better when he didn't have to pit himself against tests engineered to make the majority of the attendants fail and be used by someone who would use him to do their dirty job and throw him away like trash later. (All right, maybe he was still just a little bit bitter…) Idate had waited with baited breath after Ibiki had taken Team Seven back to Konoha, but when no one appeared even after months to demand that he join Konoha again he had allowed himself to relax. Some say that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, but the fact was that Idate had walked both sides of it and he preferred his civilian life.

Ibiki should have changed his status from KIA to MIA at the very least. He hadn't and Idate was eternally grateful for that, but now it seemed that trouble had found its way to the peaceful Tea Country after all. It was after a day of careful consideration that he approached Wasabi Jirocho, the man who had taken him in from the ditch and treated him as his own son.

Wasabi Jirocho was a big man. He had a bit rough-hewed but kind face that seemed to proclaim that like a mountain, he was here to stay and couldn't be moved. He was sitting behind his desk and sipping tea from a delicate china cup that almost completely disappeared into his big hands. His simple gray kimono and his austere room avoid of all unnecessary cluttering were like his own reflections; he wasn't a man fooled by vain gilding or cheap glittering. He smiled to Idate when he came in and like always it made him feel like a little better person than he was.

"Father, I'm sure you have heard the rumours from Makimura as well?" he begun and when Jirocho nodded he continued: "With your permission I would go there and see how much truth there is to them."

"Why bother? Makimura is far from here?" Jirocho asked, but Idate got the feeling that he wasn't necessarily disapproving, but simply curious.

"I know how these things progress. If Makimura becomes a centre of missing-nin action it will invite hunter-nins and hunter-nins in turn will invite spies. And before we know it this isn't just the problem of one town, it will spread slowly but surely over the whole country." Tea Country was a gentle land of lush rice fields and fertile orchards, harbor cities that bustled with life and smaller, idyllic country towns. It was not perfect, certainly, but what place was? If some missing-nin thought they could drag Tea Country down to their level, well, they had another thing coming.

"But what could you do? You left that life behind a long time ago and I know you have only practiced running." Jirocho didn't look happy, but he hadn't said no either.

"I'll just ascertain that it's true and not just another tall tale about yakuza turf war. If it's true, then I'll make a risk assessment and we will know how much help we need to request from Konoha. " Maybe if they were lucky they would get Naruto's team again. Naruto was a bit of a loudmouth, but he had a good heart. Actually, Idate was a bit worried about him. So pure heart in a Hidden Village was just begging for trouble.

"You would call for Konoha?" Jirocho asked with a mild voice, peering at Idate over the rim of his cup. They had _not talked_ about Ibiki and how he was alive, how it influenced Idate's view of the shinobi world for quite some while. This conversation had been coming.

"I'm not happy to deal with them," Idate answered honestly. "But now the situation is still salvageable. Better a team from Konoha now that the countryside overrun by foreign agent the next year." _I'm not going to leave you for them_, he didn't say out loud. _I just want to protect our home_. Jirocho smiled to him and set down his tea cup with a clink.

Idate packed his rucksack and put on his weights. As far as shinobi went he was a bit green, but he could do reconnaissance as well as anyone. Naruto had shown him that you had to fight for what was yours and that was ninja way even Idate could get behind.

**015. Blue**

Naruto was busy rearranging the yakuza business – Tsubaki-chan had given him a name for the crazy missing-finger people – so the girls could earn their living honestly when the first man walked in. Miwa-chan had promoted herself to his personal assistant and was doing the actual job behind the counter while Naruto sat on a stool by the chocolate aisle and went over the books Konatsu-chan had stolen for him.

Naruto was very good at math. This wasn't because of any natural aptitude, but thanks to several obstructive, petty Konohan bureaucrats who had made it necessary for him to pinch every penny while growing up. The casino boat, the loot from Saehara's safe house and the bordellos that he would turn into inns with said loot could easily make a man rich, but becoming rich wasn't his goal there; employing all the girls was and right now there were still twenty four he couldn't find anywhere to put. But Miwa-chan trusted him! He couldn't let her down!

"Excuse me, Satou-sama?" the man he had at first taken for a customer asked as he slowly dithered closer to Naruto. He was a middle-aged, plump man, dressed very smartly. In his hand there was a brown envelope.

"I am," Naruto admitted cheerily; people didn't call him sama everyday, or ever, really. Jiraiya had picked Satou Naruto for his name because Satou was the most common surname in Tea Country – and because he didn't trust Naruto to remember to introduce himself with fake first name. He would have remembered, really. But Naruto was a kick-ass name and he didn't want to lose it even for a short while. That was his story and he was sticking to it.

"I came to, ah, greet and congratulate you for your, uh, quick promotion to your current position. And also, I think we can reach a, um, an arrangement? So that everything will go smoothly?" the man stumbled over his words. He didn't sound terribly sure of himself.

"Who are you and what sort of arrangement are you speaking about?" Naruto asked and closed his account books. Maybe the man was Matsuzaki's customer and wanted to make a big order? He didn't know what other promotion the man could be referring to.

"I am Suzuki Eiji, the owner of the Billow and Wind, a restaurant by the promenade. I trust that if I, ah, pay for protection I'll have no need to worry over, ahm, unfortunate fire-related accidents." The man thrust the envelope to Naruto's hands and backed away a few steps, looking at him expectantly. Naruto might have asked about the way he looked at him, hopeful and nervous at the same time, but this was when he was hit by an epiphany.

Konoha, like all ninja villages, had a very effective fire brigade. It was necessary when fire jutsu and different kinds of explosions were part of the trade for a good portion of the villagers. He had already learned during the short while he had travelled with Jiraiya-sensei that this wasn't so in the civilian settlements. In small villages and towns whatever police force the place had covered fire fighting also and in big cities the responsibility was given to one of the samurai families, and the way they handled their duty varied from place to place, but one thing all these makeshift fire brigades had in common: no water jutsu and pretty bad mobility and reach, what with the need to haul huge water tanks by carriage or the need to make bucket chains from the nearest well. Makimura was undoubtedly the same.

He could find a fire brigade! This man was willing to pay him for it, he could use the pay and part of the yakuza treasure to make some sort of fund for the girl's wages. He would have to check the local laws, but he was pretty certain he could make it tax deductable. Konatsu-chan and Kaede could become the overseers and trainers and the water jutsu would be good for self defence too!

"This was a great idea!" he congratulated himself. The pale man, Suzuki, nodded and backed out of the shop.

Over the course of the day seventeen public-minded citizens chipped in to the Fire Brigade Fund and Naruto had a great time designing the really cool uniform with Miwa-chan. It was blue because obviously fire fighters dressed in blue, tight so it wouldn't get caught anywhere and covering so it would protect the skin.

"Do you think midnight blue or navy blue would look best? Or maybe dark blue or even ultramarine?" Miwa-chan pondered and tapped her chin with the pencil.

"There is a difference?" Naruto asked and rubbed his head. This had to be one of those girl things.

* * *

AN: Gasp! A new canon character! Anime-only, I fear, but Tea Country didn't give me a lot of options and this story was quickly becoming very OC-heavy. I needed a new character who could at least broadly be described as a "ninja" and once I dug into Idate's history he turned out to be very good fit for this.

There will be no Naruto/OC romance. Poor Miwa's feelings are quite unrequited.


	4. Chapter 4

**Where Naruto Abuses Random Foodstuff and Is a Messiah**

* * *

**016. Purple**

The end of Naruto's tenth day in Makimura, after the obligatory shop-keeping and the much-preferred fire brigade planning, saw Naruto dabbling with explosives. Miwa-chan was his faithful assistant as always and Tsubaki-chan was hovering in the background, making sure he didn't accidentally blow the safe house up. His guide in all things that go flash and bang in the night? The totally awesome From Cleaning Supplies to Warfare; How to Prepare Your Own Explosives, a Training Manual in Kayakujutsu.

Kayakujutsu, the Art of Gunpowder, had become a little old-fashioned since the explosive seals had become so common and many scoffed at it as quaint and "cute." But Naruto had made do his whole life with what he could scrape together from the teaching his sensei deigned to offer him; in the Academy Iruka-sensei had been fair at least, but Naruto had been only one of his students and admittedly a bit more maintenance than the poor teacher's time had allowed.

Besides, there were many places that would confiscate any seals they found on a person, but who would bother to confiscate bleach and hotplates?

"Let's start easy with the egg shell smoke bombs!" he proposed, rummaging through the cold cabinet. The safe house didn't have anything as modern as a fridge, but it had a cold cabinet where ice would be stored in the middle of an insulating seal array. It would take a week or so before the ice had melted enough more needed to be bought and it kept the perishable food fresh. From there Naruto picked a dozen of eggs.

"Let's see, well need sugar, fertilizer with saltpeter and a few other ingrediants for this one," Miwa-chan said as she leafed through the book. "Also, cotton wool, aluminum foil and a pan. We'll be ready in no time at all!"

"Why you bother to make bombs this day and age?" Konatsu-chan asked and Naruto wasn't sure if she sounded curious or doubting. Most of his practically all-female enterprise (he and Kaede the only exceptions so far, plus Arikko who didn't count because he was Naruto's boss) lived in the ex-whorehouse dorms, but Tsubaki-chan had demanded that Konatsu and Kaede remain under her watchful eye and Naruto didn't see why not. Besides, Tsubaki-chan was great and she probably had a good reason.

"Because many places check you for seals, but no one cares about eggs and fertilizer. I'm Konoha's Number One Surprising Ninja and proud of it!" he cheered and Konatsu-chan made a small "aha" noise deep in her throat.

After this they got to work. Miwa-chan caramelized the sugar and Tsubaki-chan insisted in being the one who distilled the saltpeter out of the fertilizer because apparently just pouring the thing into the sugar as it was would have been a Bad Idea. Naruto was the one who mixed that with the rest of the incredients and put the end product, a sort of thick paste, onto the folio to dry while Kaede made himself useful by pricking a small hole into the egg shells and sucking them carefully dry. It was apparently something he used to do a lot as a kid for some strange reason and he had learned to like the taste. After this the dry paste was powdered and poured into the eggs with a thin straw, after which a string was added for a fuse and the hole was sealed with cotton wool. In the end the kitchen counter was full of various pans, glass jars and spoons, plus a primus stove, and they had twelve innocuous-looking eggs sitting in their cartoon.

"Now we try this out," Naruto decided. He carried one egg outside and they all were watching with various states of interest as he carefully lit the short fuse and jumped back just before the fragile egg shell _exploded_.

There was smoke. Surprisingly lot of smoke in fact, considering how small the egg had been. The book had said that the more sugar, the more smoke and Miwa-chan had to have been generous with it. The egg bomb filled the darkening front yard with a mushroom-pillar of pale purple cloud. Miwa-chan was coughing and Konatsu-chan nodded appreciatively.

"Not bad. You can buy sugar and fertilizer everywhere." Now her voice was somehow sly like it slithered its way inside the ear, but the grin that slowly broke out reminded him of Sakura-chan when she was feeling evil in the best possible way.

"This would be even cooler if we used something bigger than an egg, like a hollowed pumpkin. But why is it purple?" Naruto asked. The book had said that the smoke was supposed to be white.

"I guess that's from some chemical residue from something in the fertilizer," Tsubaki-chan speculated.

"And the next time we can do something that really explodes!" Naruto jumped up and down with anticipation. All in all it had been a good evening.

* * *

AN: **I left a few steps out on purpose**. Don't try this at home.

* * *

**017. Brown**

Afterwards Morino Idate thought that he should have guessed the moment he heard the name Naruto. Granted, these people called him _Satou_, but how many people in the world would saddle their child with a name like Naruto? A name like that simply begged to be spelled with the wrong kanji. Nevertheless, he didn't make the connection as he circumspectly eavesdropped on a man in the local police's blue uniform conversing with a man in rough spun brown clothes in a small harbor bar. It was a rough place for rough people, but Idate hadn't yet forgotten his lessons in how to fit in.

"I saw him at distance once, a pretty short guy, but he beat those thugs up like it was nothing. I heard that cream-ass chocolate chandler Matsuzaki's involved! Who would have thought? He was supposed to be _so_ _respectable_," the unshaved man spoke with obvious relish. Idate leaned back a bit, sipping from his mug and sighing, pretending to relax. The bar was a pretty miserable place, a watering hole with tables darkened with age and walls darkened with smoke from the train oil lanterns and no windows. It was like the colour brown had decided to launch an attack to suck all joy out of the world. It was the sort of place where all drunks were either sad or angry.

"Did you see him kill any of those thugs?" the police officer asked with a hopeful voice. Idate saw from the corner of his eye how the man shook his head.

"Nah, I ran like hell. Saw one of them the next day, with a bruise the size of a soup bowl on his cheek," he grunted and downed his mug of ale.

This short exchange was enough to lead Idate to Matsuzaki's Better Delicacies Shop where the girl at the counter, a cute one with pretty brown hair and pleasant face but stern eyes, gave him an answer to a question he hadn't even asked, much to his embarrassment.

"Walk down the Candle Makers' Street and down the stairs that lead to an empty stretch of beach, you may meet Naruto-kun there right now. I advise you to NOT try anything stupid, though. You wouldn't like the results." These words were uttered with absolute conviction, along with coldness that practically dripped ice fern to the floor. He nodded and said his thanks, leaving the girl and the shop that smelled pleasantly of cinnamon and peppermint. It was a pity that she was involved in such shady affairs, he thought. And wondered despite himself what her name was.

The girl's advice and the salty sea wind led him to the old red granite stairs and the yellowish-brown beach. It was rather rocky, which was probably the reason tourists hadn't invaded this stretch of sand and seawater yet. Standing on the uppermost stair he saw a group of people. They were all rather young, though the age varied from the tween to the later twenties. It was a gaggle of women all in rather simple yukata, forming a wide circle around three figures. There were dark-haired girl and boy dressed in blue and a boy with bright daffodil-yellow hair wearing grab-you-by-the-eyeballs orange jumpsuit. That could only be one person in this whole world.

"Naruto, what the hell are you doing here!" he shouted and ran down the stairs. The mass of people in simple pale blue and dim green opened to let him through and he found himself face to face with one grinning Uzumaki Naruto.

"Hey, Idate! It's great to see you, what are you doing here? We are training my fire brigade." Naruto gave him a blinding grin, but the females were closing in on him with flint in their dark eyes. Many were pressing their hands into fists, or spreading their fingers like claws.

"What it is that you want with Naruto-kun?" one of them asked. Idate got the impression that if he gave the wrong answer now this whole group would try to claw his eyes and probably his heart out as well.

What he made out of the explanation, once he managed to calm them down somewhat, was that these people would be a fire brigade, that this place was now completely yakuza-free and that Jiraiya – Jiraiya the Sannin! – had left Naruto alone here for whole two months…Something like this could only happen with Naruto. But he could deal with two months. Idate had no idea where people had gotten the idea that Naruto was a yakuza leader, given that the idiot was terminally incapable on harming a caterpillar unless it first committed a murder of one of his friends, but just two months and this circus would leave the town and country. That was harmless.

"We met a little while ago when he helped me. Can I do something for you?" he asked from the group as a whole. And if he was thinking of the fierce girl with the chocolate hair in the shop it was no-one's business but his own.

**018. Black**

Week Two was almost up and Naruto had decided that he was having way better time than he would have with Ero-sensei anyway. Idate had taught the girls self-defense the last two days and Konatsu-chan and Kaede had taught this simple water jutsu called Suiton: Mizurappa that was a little like Sasuke-teme's fireball jutsu, except it made you spit water instead. So far Naruto was the only one who had learned it, but the girls were beginners. He was sure it was just a matter of time before they got it.

He was sitting outside the house in a folding chair, munching one of the apples left over from that day's experimentation, and thought that he should go meet Arikko and maybe bring him the apple dumpling Tsubaki-chan was making from the carved-out apple flesh. Konatsu-chan was having hand-to hand practice with Kaede and they yelled at each other, making great leaps around the yard. The apple was tart and the sun was warm. Of course something had to happen.

He saw Konatsu-chan and Kaede dodge before he saw what they dodged. Ten sharp icicles as tall as Naruto's arm was long struck the ground where the two young ninja had just stood the moment before , sinking deep into the ground. At their wake a tall man in blue kimono with a striped undershirt and a mask with blue swirl dropped to the ground. His posture was lazy in a way that reminded Naruto of Kakashi-sensei, shoulders relaxed and posture loose, but there was a sense of danger that just clung to him. But while Konatsu pulled her blade and Kaede shouted for Tsubaki, in Naruto's eyes the picture of the man overlapped momentarily with another figure, a smaller and slimmer one, standing on a tree branch. Haku in hunter-nin costume… But Haku was dead, and so was Zabuza.

"You kids got further than I thought possible. But now it's time for you to die." The unknown shinobi's voice was flat and bored as he positioned his hands for making hand signs, but waiting for his opponent's first move. He was mocking Konatsu-chan, Naruto realized, telling her she didn't stand a chance and could just lie down and die now.

And if there was something Naruto could be trusted to _absolutely, undeniably and forever-reliably __**hate…**_

"No, you won't! Your village's a hellhole, they are better off here and you aren't touching them! And who are you to tell other people they suck when you are such a happy evil minion anyway?!" His fingers moved with practiced ease and the man didn't even have time to speak – if he even intended to speak – before the yard was swamped by fifty shadow clones. They all jumped as one against the man.

After that it was tightly contained chaos. The man struck seven clones down with water bullets and brief flashes of _impact_ and _pain_ flashed through Naruto's mind, followed by a sliver of black, but he didn't let it stop himself. He got a punch through, the man blocked three clones and kicked him and they were again apart, in a, well, if not sea then at least a good-sized puddle of yellow and orange. Konatsu-chan took the chance to hit the man with the same jutsu she had tried to teach to the girls that very day, but it hit the great oak behind where the hunter-nin had just stood. They all darted around each other for a moment as they analyzed each other. This was when three apples flew unerring towards the man in the air. He took a mocking step to the side and gave Tsubaki-chan a mocking nod.

"The first thing you happened to hold, I presume?" he asked. And Naruto was angry, but he wasn't so angry as to not notice the way Tsubaki-chan's eyebrows went up. It was a sight to see.

There was an explosion that broke every window in the house.

The ninja had dodged, but he had to pull a short blade midair to meet Tsubaki-chan's. Two waterjutsu flew at him at the same time, but the man dodged them nimbly, landing on his feet. The ground under them had turned to slick mud and Naruto's foot slipped on it.

"What was that?" the hunter-nin asked and for the first time he sounded rather rattled. "How you managed to fool me with genjutsu?"

"It wasn't genjutsu, it was a cute and quaint custom!" Naruto shouted, threw himself forward and made a movement to punch the man in the face, which provoked a reflex of blocking the said punch. But that couldn't sadden him much now; his bombs had been vindicated, so hah! Kaede was the next to strike with his kodachi, Konatsu-chan right at his heels and several Narauto-clones gave them back-up. Black, black, black flickered across Naruto's vision as the clones died, but Kaede didn't die so that was good. Tsubaki-chan engaged the enemy now and steel met steel witch clangs that echoed right down to the roots of Naruto's teeth. But he wasn't sitting on his ass either. As he finished flicking his fingers, he called out the name of his technique.

"KUCHIYOSE NO JUTSU!"

Pouring as much chakra as he could into it, Naruto summoned forth Gamaken, the great magenta toad the same size as Gamabunta... Who appeared directly above the hunter-nin. He almost got out of the way.

"You seem to have a situation here, Naruto. I hope I can be of some modest help," the forever polite Gamaken greeted his summoner, turning his head and apparently trying to figure out what and where the situation was.

It was an odd scene. The strong, old oak had snapped under the great toad like a matchstick and a curvy branch of it had protected the hunter-nin from turning into paste. Mud had splashed everywhere and Naruto was covered in it from head to toe. The tree had luckily fallen not over the house or the geisha house next to it, but towards the road, the Naruto-clones were all gone and and he was blinking the jet-coloured darkness of death from his eyes. The rest of the wet, dirty fighters had pressed tightly against the house as the yard was just big enough for the great toad warrior. The hunter-nin groaned in pain and defeat.

"What are the neighbours thinking about us now, I wonder?" Tsubaki-chan contemplated and her voice was the only dry thing in close vicinity

**019. White**

A giant toad had fallen on top of him. Doihara Taiki, Shrike, could barely believe his own memory even though he had been stripped down to his underwear and tied tightly up. The loud, blond boy in kill-me-orange was apparently Jiraiya of the Sannin's student, Konoha had some interest in Mizushima Konatsu and her alleged half-brother (or possibly boyfriend) and he could never tell his superiors what he had learned. Somehow… this didn't make her feel the anguish such thoughts were supposed to. He just felt kind of bored and numb as he wondered if he would be tortured for information here or shipped to Konoha to Morino Ibiki's tender care.

"Hey, I have a question for you, Evil Minion-san." When the bright form of his captor trotted to him, Taiki thought his question answered. The smile on the boy's face was much too wide to mean any good and the way his quarried glowered from the other end of the room surely meant they would love to offer their assistance.

"Codename Shrike, jounin, registration ID 01554." His voice was clipped, stern. His mask had been taken from him and he felt near naked, but he would never give his name, let alone anything more incriminating. The boy blinked and if Taiki read his body language correctly, not-really-Satou was more bemused than anything.

"That's nice? But about my question…" Satou-for-lack-of-better-name continued his original trail of thought.

"Codename Shrike, jounin, registration ID 01554." He supplied again and took a deep breath, preparing his body for a blow – most likely nothing truly damaging at first, it would begin with beating and sleep deprivation.

"Yeah, you told me that, but what I want…" Now his intrepid interrogator was beginning to look frustrated. Taiki took that as a small victory.

"Codename Shrike, jounin…"

"Do you like apple dumplings?" Satou shouted over his litany, red-faced. Taiki's tongue froze in his mouth as he tried to wrench his thoughts to the new rails. Apple dumplings? Where did apple dumplings enter the conversation? And dear kami, why?

"They are good enough, I guess," he answered nonchalantly. It was enough to get Satou to grab one from a nearby table and push it into his mouth. It was hot and sweet and he had hard time swallowing it. Satou rambled on about how he had at first offered the dumplings to Gamaken the Toad of Awesome – Taiki could hear the Capital Letters – but Gamaken had declined and now they had enough for everyone. Silence followed this and he didn't break it first.

"Why you are hunter-nin anyway? You don't look evil enough to like it in Kiri. Is that it, you became hunter so you wouldn't have to spend time in Kiri?" Satou speculated and it made Taiki feel unease, and then anger because of the unease. He hadn't ever thought of his career choice in those terms and he wasn't going to start now.

"Where "like" entered the equation? I am Kiri's property, no more and no less," he reassured himself. Like his country was during the winter, colourless and featureless as the snow covered the world, he was snow white and snow cold, with little but his registration ID to tell him apart from a hundred others. He had a function to perform and before this unfortunate incident he had performed it without a flaw. He had hunted his every quarry down, even his two genin teammates, and their red had mixed with the winter white. No-one who graduated from Kirigakure Academy could ever be sentimental. So what of it if he sometimes felt like he had died a while ago and just not noticed?

"Not you too. Just like Haku was, what it is with that place?" Satou groaned, though the question wasn't really addressed to anyone. Taiki briefly wondered who Haku was, but didn't ask, and then Satou continued already: "You know what, you need some attitude adjustment. This is for your own best. So you insist on being property, fine, then I'm stealing you!"

"What." Just a single word. He couldn't even manage a questioning note to tag to the end of it.

* * *

AN: I hate writing fighting scenes so obviously I write about ninjas… I'm kind of dumb like that. Just four drabbles this time because number 20 is going to be part of a set with 21 and 22.


	5. Chapter 5

**The Kabuto Gaiden and Makimura Rumour Mill**

* * *

**020. Colourless**

_The beginning of the story was a situation in Iwa and a boy whose parentage really, really would be better not discovered or even suspected there... but that was only the beginning of one story. The stories of different people are intertwined and branching, before they go their separate ways again, they overlap and share side characters like friends share a bento box. And when one story is just beginning, another has gone on for a good long while. _

_A question: What colour is a chameleon in a mirror?_

_Kabuto didn't know the answer, but he was starting to suspect that he had no colour left at all, like an old shirt that had been washed too often. He was a loyal shinobi of Konoha. He was also a loyal shinobi of the Root and that was a whole another cup of tea, even though the two weren't mutually exclusive. He was a loyal shinobi of Kumo and Suna and Kiri, except not really, and it was getting so bad that when he got up from the bed every morning he had a moment when he didn't remember who he was supposed to be loyal again… or who he was supposed to be. Or what the difference between loyal and traitorous had first felt. It was an unnerving sensation, like all his joints were loose and could dislocate any moment, only these joints were all in his head._

_Something needed to be done. Kabuto received an answer of sorts from an old shinobi in one of Kiri's bars. The man was drunk, which was part of why Kabuto approached him in the first place; all the easier to cast that small piece of genjutsu on him, the one that disturbed the conversion of short-term memories into long-term memories. It wouldn't do for that man to wonder later why he had asked such a question, after all. The other part was that the man had served in Kiri's Counterintelligence for years and there was a fair chance that he might say something applicable._

_In another life this man wouldn't have been alive at all, and Kabuto would have asked someone else and received a different answer. But in this life the gruff man sat there, melancholic and drunk and _alive_, and he gave Kabuto a look that might have been almost pitying._

_"You are too young to make that kind of career choice, brat. Go play ninja with your genin team," he said and sipped his sake._

_"Okay, so I'm too young to do that yet," Kabuto acquiesced with respectful ease. "But what would I do, if sometime I was deemed worthy?" He kept his body language open and eager to please (keep your body open, that sounds obscene, Momo had had laughed, she was an orphan from the red lights district, but that was of course long before they learned how to not find amusement in anything because amusement was distracting…) and his eyes had just the right bit of hero worship and not too much sense. There was a disconnect between the naivety the broadcasted and the kind of question he had asked, but the man was drunk._

_"If you can't trust yourself to remember who you are, pick someone to remember it for you and do whatever they think you would do," the man grunted and shooed him away. Kabuto left, his mind weighting possibilities. No one in Root would do; when they could barely remember who they were, how could they form an acceptable baseline for Kabuto?_

_Someone loyal, someone who wasn't damaged goods yet. Someone from the uppermost leafs of Konoha to remind the roots what they were doing the dirty work for. Someone who embodied the idea of Konoha, yet who would be approachable and responsive to his advances. He returned to Konoha not only with the required intelligence, but also an idea. He had figured out an S-class secret on his own._

_He knew whose son Uzumaki was._

**021. Friends**

_When Naruto became five years old he got a new friend. His name was Kabuto and he knew everything about everything, or so it seemed like to star-struck Naruto back then. The first time he met the older boy it was well past the dusk and Naruto was sitting in a swing in the playground near the orphanage. He had overheard some older kids that day when he had snuck out of the orphanage. They had been clan kids, dressed like their dads in wire mesh and ninja pants and dark shirts, only without weapons, and they had argued how their curfew was _the most unfair thing ever_._

_"It would be so neat if we could just sneak out after its dark," one of them said. He had wild, mousy-coloured hair and a small puppy in his arms. Naruto had once asked for a puppy, but the matron had just laughed at him. "Can you imagine? No-one would know!"_

_That night Naruto snuck out through the window – it was first story so it was easy – and went under the gate to get to the street. It was really easy and he didn't know why the older boys thought it was so difficult. But then, he didn't get what was so fun about playing after dark, except that no-one came to push him down from the swing. But then the boy with gray hair came to talk with him and he understood it perfectly: nighttime was a great time to make new friends! It was the first time when he wanted to play ninja that someone said yes to him._

_"First we must make drop bags," Kabuto told him._

_"What's a drop bag?" Naruto asked. He was walking with Kabuto down the street to the part of town Hokage-jiji had told him not to go to, but even though he felt kinda bad for disobeying Hokage-jiji, he went because he didn't want his new friend to think he was a baby._

_"Drop bag is an emergency pack where you keep weapons, clothes and money and you hide it in a secret location so that if something happens and you have to leave the village in a hurry, you don't have to leave empty-handed," Kabuto explained. The way he played ninja was different from the way the other people did it, but that was just cool._

_The first time Naruto met Kabuto they just played ninja. They played surveillance on a warehouse and had to make notes on anyone who came in or went out. It wasn't anyone interesting, just men who carried a lot of crates, but Kabuto told him to imagine they were secret weapon crates and that was exiting. Naruto couldn't write yet so he just pretended, but Kabuto made real notes. After that they made plans to steal the weapons and black-mail the owner by taking pictures and threatening to send them to T&I. Naruto didn't know what T&I was, but it sounded scary when Kabuto threatened imaginary people with it. He didn't just have to imagine those people either, Kabuto could make them visible! That was called genjutsu and it was a totally kick-ass ninja art. It was a fun night and even though he was really tired the next day it was SO worth it._

_The second time Naruto met Kabuto he was asked a lot of funny questions._

_"Do you know what a chameleon is?" Kabuto asked him. He didn't know and Kabuto told him it's a lizard that changes colour to whatever it is on. That sounded really ninja-like to Naruto and he said so._

_"True, true." Kabuto laughed, but it wasn't happy laughter, more like a dog's bark. "But what colour is a chameleon that's on a mirror? What colour am I?" Naruto gave this a lot of thought. Kabuto had silver hair and really pale skin, his clothes were blue and in the dark of the night he looked like a shadow and a glitter of moonlight, but Naruto didn't think this was about that. He didn't know why, but he had a feeling that this was really, really important to Kabuto and he had to get the answer right. Friends came through for friends._

_"You are friend-coloured," he said and Kabuto smiled to him in a way that looked a lot friendlier. Encouraged, Naruto went on: "And you are cool-coloured and lots-of-knowledge-coloured too." And Kabuto stood straighter and pushed the glasses up his nose in a way that looked really wise._

_Naruto saw Kabuto five times before he went away in a mission for a year. He saw Kabuto twice after he got partnered with some guy who was a medic-nin and taught him to be a medic-nin too, but Kabuto had a lot of missions and couldn't spare much time to play with his young friend. After that Naruto saw him for the first time in the chuunin exams and things went to south really fast after that. He had pretty much forgotten the whole drop bag thing, but after trying and failing to retrieve Sasuke he went to check their secret place under the Hokage Mountain the moment they let him out of the hospital. His bag was there, but Kabuto's was gone. It didn't hurt quite so much as Sasuke's defection. It didn't hurt quite so much as Haku's death had._

_It made a close third, though._

**022. Enemies**

_Uzumaki Naruto was an idea that worked. He gave Kabuto a lot of colours and while none of them were colours as the word was conventionally interpreted, he was satisfied with them. Friendship, cool, knowledgeable, secrets, fun. He became a lot better at faking sanity as accepted by the norms of the Hidden Leaf after that. Maybe, he thought, just maybe he wasn't wholly faking it when he smiled to a vendor who gave him an extra apple and complimented his friendly manner. He felt warm and free in his action in a way he hadn't for a while, like he didn't have to measure every action before he took one. Friendly-coloured…_

_Friendly worked, he learned, with a great big number of people and in most situations, and even on a mission, smiling and being polite unnerved his enemy more than his threats ever did so it worked out. Conflicting signals, one of his sempai said. Kabuto was simply happy to have a script he didn't have to deviate from._

_The last time Kabuto saw Naruto before leaving for Iwa. They played ninja only after the darkness had fallen, to protect Kabuto's face from becoming linked to the Kyuubi jinchuuriki. He had a feeling Danzo-sama wouldn't like that. This time he employed a small area-genjutsu to help them play recruiting for a spy organization. What he used was a real simulation and Naruto, he noted with some amusement, was actually devastatingly good at recruiting, even though he didn't seem to fully realize the way he took advantage of people's raw places._

_"When I'm big I'm gonna have my own secret ninja organization! And then you can be part of it too!" Naruto crowed after the "play" had ended for the night._

_"Is that so?" Kabuto asked, smiling and ruffling his hair. Naruto made a small protest and squirmed his way out from under his hand._

_"Yeah, and you have to promise you will be part of it. It's one of your colours, you know. Always-keeps-promises-to-friends-colour." Naruto stated imperiously. He seemed to enjoy the right to dictate Kabuto's colours._

_"So I am, then," he affirmed and nodded his head, trying to recall when was the last time he had been asked to give promise. In Root he was given a lot of orders, but no promises were expected of him – promise implied trust and Danzo-sama trusted no-one. The last person he had given a promise to had been Nono. How long had it been since he last thought of her?_

_"I promise that when you found a secret ninja organization, I will join it." He didn't feel disjointed anymore now that Naruto knew who and what he was for him. That was worth any promise. He was aware it wasn't quite healthy to be so dependent on the perceptions of another, but it was healthier than what he used to be. He even started to dream on Nono again, of her smiles and the smell of freshly baked bread on her hands. In another life he would have called Nono a mother. He wondered at times what had come of her. Yakushi was her surname and she had let him use it as his own._

_So Yakushi Kabuto went to Iwa and found he had enough of a human heart for it to break. Nono, he could barely believe that of her. Nono was one of Danzo's. But Nono _hadloved_ him, she hadn't wanted to give him up. She had tried to buy him free, by taking that one mission._

_Yakushi Nono was double-crossed, killed by the same son she had tried to free and what was left of Kabuto's sanity gave spirit at last._

_For the first time in his life Kabuto had an enemy he shared with no authority. Enemy was a colour like the tang of blood on tongue and a knot so cold it burned lodged within the heart._

_Naruto hadn't given him loyalty for Konoha as a colour and so Kabuto wasn't bothering with that loyalty. Orochimaru offered him a chance for revenge and he took it happily. His new master often spoke of his true colours – the Snake Sannin, Danzo, Sasori, they all had him, or thought they did – with great amusement, but this was a secret Kabuto kept from him. His colour was a friend; Naruto's friend. He truly didn't see being in Naruto's enemy's service mutually exclusive with that friendship; what did enemies and allies matter? But there was something he was as well. He was one who would have to keep a promise he had given to Naruto. Orochimaru, after all, had asked him for none._

I promise that when you get a secret ninja organization, I will join it.

**023. Lovers**

The people of Makimura thought that Naruto-kun was a yakuza boss, strong as a monster and obviously some kind of evil genius to have taken over in less than a week, albeit his "evil" was somewhat diminished by his tendency to be polite to women, his fondness of little children and the way he never actually terrorized anyone who didn't go out of their way to terrorize or arrest his precious people first. This was nothing new and Tsubaki was beginning to learn this kind of odd situations as something inherently Naruto, the same as taking pity on and taking in potentially dangerous and very desperate Kiri missing-nin.

(Naruto argued two out of the three didn't really count as missing-nin because they hadn't graduated to become ninja in the first place. She was sure Kirigakure didn't care.)

What was new was that she was due to some inexplicable, communal caprice thought to be Naruto's moll.

"What is wrong with these people?" she asked Kaede-kun, the person with the bad luck to be in her presence when she overhead a man warning his friend from hitting on "the yakuza boss' bird, she aint' worth that". "Their delusions about his moral character aside, Naruto-kun is thirteen!" she hissed in annoyance. It was true that in most places, Konoha included, genin were considered legally adults, but there were different degrees of legal and that just wasn't. Or if it was somewhere, the legal system of that place was in serious need of revamping.

"People tend to have kind of lurid imagination. I mean, there were lots of people who whispered I was, uh servicing Konatsu in return for her tutoring back in Kiri. Neither of us is twelve this day, and I'm not entirely sure _all_ of them were unaware we are siblings," Kaede-kun commiserated, and Tsubaki had to concede with an inner wince that accusations of underage sibling incest prostitution were about on par with pedophilia.

They were walking down the street towards the shop that had become their base of non-existent operations simply because the little safe house couldn't house everyone involved at this point. Now that Tsubaki had become aware of the rumours circulating, she noticed how many people actually nodded to her when she walked past and she remembered the bargains she had gotten for the food and practically everything she had shopped for in Makimura. None of the nodders –some whom nodded so deep it wasn't a nod anymore, but a bow – were tourists either, she noticed. All were locals.

"Besides, they think we are yakuza; I guess high moral standards aren't really expected of us," Kaede whispered and shared a look with Tsubaki that said things. _This can be used_, it said, _we get things cheaper and no one messes with us and maybe we really could do something illegal if we can speak Naruto into it because money's always good_. It was a very pragmatic look, a Kiri look on the face of a boy much too young to be so jaded, but then, that was Kirigakure. Blood on the water and cruel smiles hidden by the mists.

"To the winner go the spoils," Tsubaki mused and freaked herself out just a little bit. Because while most of her hoped to any deity who might listen that no one in Konoha ever heard of this, another, small, petty part wouldn't have cared about the malignation of her character quite so much if only these rumours could have reached Mizuki, if only he could have come to believe that the one who beat him had gotten his woman. It was only now that she realized to how great extent she wasn't over him and his betrayal yet.

"The critique of the loan economy is that we buy thing we don't need with money we don't have to impress people we don't like, but what are we criticizing when the case is that we are ready to have people whose morals we deride to think ours are low as well?" she wondered. Kaede made a small sound at the back of his throat and gave her a long look, and Tsubaki realized she had asked it out loud.

**024. Family**

Matsuzaki Arikko was a man who liked his comforts. He was comfortably wealthy and had a well-established business that gave him respectability. He had a nice modern house with all modern comforts Tea Country could offer; no buying ice from the ice vendor to keep his food cold, oh no, and no need to buy coal to keep his house warm. He didn't have kids, but his sister had, as well as grandkids; handy whenever parental mood struck him and he felt like spoiling someone a little rotten. Then there was Sakuya, a widow of an old friend of his, who lived next door to his oldest niece. They had been flirting for a while now, and who knew? The days went past, all similar, all peaceful.

Or they used to go in such manner. Now his precious comfort zone had been shattered into a hundred little pieces and the worst part of it was that a pretty big part of the blame lay with him. He should have known better than to allow himself to be drawn into ninja business, but it had gotten him such a good shipping contract…

And honestly, nothing of importance ever happened in Tea Country, in Makimura even less. It was a tourist trap with no strategic value, no natural resources and it was part of no important trade route. If his delicacy trade wasn't the biggest thing going on, it was pretty close!

Just yesterday he'd had to explain to his nieces, his nephew and Sakuya that he wasn't part of any deals with yakuza, honest, it was just… ninja… but they are the nice guys, honest! That hadn't gone well at all. In a way his heart condition and enforced rest was even a blessing: it gave him a good reason to stay home. He didn't want to know what people were speaking of him. And today, just to add insult to injury, Satou Narauto had come to visit him with his posse.

There was an older woman, though young still, with brown hair, a vest of some sort and stern eyes. She was keeping a suspicious eye on a man in yellow yukata that seemed a little small on him, like it wasn't his own. A girl in strange ninja-looking blue clothes complemented the picture.

So this was Naruto's Family, or what passed for one in the ninja world. A squad? Minions? A flock?

"Hi, Matsuzaki, it's nice to see you are sitting up and stuff!" Naruto greeted him. Arikko was sitting on his old, ratty, comfortable armchair in his living room, sipping iced tea. It had been a better day than the previous, but of course nothing that good could last. Naruto pushed a paper bag into his lap, grinning like a loon.

"There are apple dumplings, we had a lot off applesauce because we made bombs. This is Tsubaki-chan, she's my sempai, and Miwa-chan, she's my assistant-in-all things, and Shrike who isn't telling me his real name yet, he was a Kiri hunter-nin, but I stole him," he gave the introductions like they were supposed to make sense. Arikko gave what he heard all the contemplation he could bear and pressed his face in his hands.

"I don't even want to know."

**025. Strangers**

The following is a transcription of a conversation between Satou Naruto (S) and Unknown male 2 (U2).

The conversation took place in front of Matsuzaki's Better Delicacies Shop. Unknown male 2 is approximately twenty-five years old. Tall, 6 foot and a few inches, with lean build. He has short dark brown hair, long nose and a little rounder jaw than usual of Tea Country's citizens. No visible scars or other distinctive marks.

U2: Why are you doing this?

S: Why am I doing what?

U2: Don't play stupid. Why you care enough to try something this stupid? I'm a complete stranger to you. I was your enemy.

S: Hah! You said WAS! NOT AM!

U2: A slip of tongue – why am I even explaining anything? What is your interest in me?

S: You know, strangers are just friends you haven't met yet. Besides, we have met so we aren't strangers, but friends already.

U2: Isn't that a decision that requires two people to make?

S: Ah, ah, remember. Stolen.

U2: As though I could forget. Why? That question can't be too much to ask, surely. Why?

S: Why are you still here instead of, I don't know, baking a file into a cake? I mean, not like it would be that hard to up and go.

U2: It's morbid curiosity, nothing more and nothing less.

S: Whatever works. At least you are –

U2: IT'S NOT WORKING!

S: You know, Iruka-sensei always said that resorting to raising volume is a sign of losing an argument. Give in to the happy side of life. We have ramen. And apple dumplings.

U2: You are the least reasonable individual I have ever had the misfortune of conversing with.

At this point S and U2 entered the shop and I heard no more. Questions: What has been stolen? U2 appears conflicted in regards to working for S, I'm advising careful contact. He may agree to testify in exchange for immunity from prosecution. Who is Iruka-sensei? More research about backers is in order.

_Were the capital letters really necessary?_

You had to be there, boss. The windows rattled.

* * *

AN: So here we see we went off the canon rails into the AU land before the story even started. Actually it was even before Kabuto; cookies for anyone who can guess where the butterfly started flapping its wings.

I hope I managed a sufficient amount of creepy with Kabuto. I didn't want to make a marshmallow version of him.


	6. Chapter 6

**Where People Lie a Lot and Naruto Doesn't Get Asked, He Gets a Religion Instead**

* * *

**026. Teammates**

It isn't easy to think in straight lines in a world that thinks in circles. Naruto knew that people often thought he was a little simple, but it wasn't that. Things were simple and people insisted on making them a lot more complicated than they were. Take, for example, him and Kyuubi. Naruto wanted to be loved. If he hurt people, he wouldn't be loved so obviously he wasn't going to hurt anyone who didn't really have it coming. People should think that they didn't want Naruto to hurt them and thus not treat him badly, but so many people failed common sense forever. They were lucky Naruto was the sensible type.

Even Iruka-sensei didn't quite get it, though he had come close. Being happy was better than being unhappy, obviously, so Naruto was happy. It wasn't always easy, but hey, the only good thing about easy was that it was easy. Easy wasn't synonym for happy and it wasn't like his whole life sucked or anything. Just some people in it and if those people included S-class criminals, hey, neither person nor S-class criminal was a synonym for life. Trying to explain things like this to Shrike was ridiculously complicated, but that was nothing new to Naruto. Straight lines and circles.

A wasp zigzagged its way next to Naruto's ear and he waved it off briskly, hopping a little. Shrike gave him a look, but hey, Naruto knew those were really mean-tempered and would sting you just for fun. He had even used some for anti-Uchiha pranks before the massacre, good memories he now told Shrike. Wasps didn't fly in a straight path, they sort of zigzagged in patterns that kept changing, which made dodging them difficult even for Sharingan-users since they were used to dodging straight-line projectiles. And a whole nest of wasps, now that was a proper come-uppance.

"That guy totally deserved it, he kicked a little civilian girl's puppy when it grabbed his pant leg. And don't look at me like that, it was fun!" But then, Naruto had already noticed that Shrike was really bad at enjoying his life. "Do you want to be unhappy?" he asked. There were, apparently, people who liked being in pain. He had read that one manuscript for Jiraiya when his proofreader had quit and he had at first thought it was about ANBU, but then it had gotten seriously weird. He really could have gone through life without learning what masochist meant, but at least he now knew what the nut was that got screwed wrong in Sasuke-teme's brain. (Only without the sex part, hopefully, because _yuck_!)

"I wasn't unhappy," Shrike insisted. Naruto had sneaked them both out of the safe house because he had a feeling Shrike wasn't going to feel comfortable if Tsubaki-chan was glaring at him and so they were sitting on a bench in a park. It was a pretty place, with almost overgrown paths and a shrine nearby. The trees were looking kind of sad. Naruto thought it might be because of the heat and no rain, but the tall red and yellow and orange flowers were putting up a good fight and he wondered if anyone would mind if he took a few with him. Tsubaki-chan would be mad later for ditching her and so would Miwa-chan, but sometimes you had to accept that people were going to get mad at you. It was for a good cause.

"But you weren't happy either and isn't "not happy" a synonym for unhappy?" Naruto asked Shrike. Synonym was a surprisingly useful word; it made explaining these things a lot easier. Red rose to the older man's face and it reminded Naruto of Iruka, except not. Iruka flushed red, but he smiled when he did it. Shrike's eyes glittered like pieces of funny-coloured flint.

"Why. You. Care?" His voice was rising to a shrill falsetto now, almost unmanly, but something of it really reminded Naruto of Kakashi-sensei's voice when he told his sensei about Sasuke and the chidori and that sent something cold up and down his spine. But if there was one thing Naruto wasn't, that was a coward.

"Look, it's not like I just grabbed you because. You can't get something for nothing and I wanted you to not be so screwed up so I had to give something in exchange. We are teammates now," Naruto said and because he just knew that Shrike was going to be difficult he continued: "I have a group of people who work with me so I have a team. I stole you so you are now part of the team and that makes us teammates so deal with it. I'm not gonna stop sheltering you and if you want to join the fire brigade or do something else, like, take up interpretative dance or something, I'm gonna support you and that's non-negotiable." There was silence at first, and only wind rustled in the trees. It smelled like the sea, wet like Kiri jutsu and really, really free.

"...My name is Doihara Taiki."

A straight line trumps a circle. Every time.

**027. Parents**

It was yet another perfectly beautiful day in the perfectly wonderful beach resort town Makimura. The sky was blue and the sea was even blear, the birds were singing their tiny hearts off and the golden beaches were filled with beautiful - and some not-so-beautiful, but no-one counted that - women in tiny swimsuits. There were about two hundred Narutos in the city at the moment, doing this and that in the two huge ex-bordellos to change them into actual inns; the casino boat had been good for use as it was, but the interior decoration of a yakuza cathouse left a lot to be desired. Tsubaki wasn't out practicing with the fire brigade, though - she would have liked to be, for water jutsu had never been her strongest suit and some of the things Taiki-san knew were just plain wicked. She wasn't with Naruto either, though she liked to keep an eye on him and guard him from harm.

Ono Tsubaki was busy writing a report. Naruto was only answerable to Jiraiya for now, but she still had to contact Konoha and there lay a problem. She was pretty sure Konoha wouldn't approve of what was going on in Makimura.

She munched on a sweet cinnamon-apple dumpling while she eyed the intimidatingly white paper. It was ironic, but while Naruto's favourite food for all times was ramen and there was indeed more instant ramen in the house than Tsubaki would have thought necessary to last out a month-long siege, he had gotten his friends/comrades/followers completely addicted on apple dumpling. He was surprisingly proficient baker in addition to the Number One Most Surprising Ninja.

I would love to say this makes more sense in context, she thought, but on reflection it didn't. It was just Naruto all the way.

Tsubaki was certain that Naruto wasn't doing anything that was explicitly forbidden, if only because no-one ever thought it necessary to forbid making legal business, founding a fire brigade, fighting yakuza or talking foreign shinobi into defecting, and certainly his current commanding officer hadn't done so - it was only in Naruto's tender care that this became a rather epic case of Implicitly Forbidden. And Tsubaki wanted to see this through. It was...

Maybe she felt a bit maternal. Naruto had no parents and no-one knew who they had been, though the logical assumption was that they had died when the Kyuubi had attacked Konoha. If Naruto had a father figure that would be Iruka and if not for the strange, she didn't know how to best describe it except maybe by calling _fealty_, the best way to describe what Tsubaki felt (some people's sick assumptions aside) would be a proud mother watching her son make name for himself. She wondered idly if Iruka had done this on purpose and when she snapped herself out of her musing she found she had drabbled flowers and indeterminable geometric shapes all over the paper. She replaced it with a sigh.

She couldn't outright lie, of course; that would be discovered. Even omissions would be bad news for her. But maybe she could not-omit things in a way that made them look more regular than they actually were.  
_  
I have assisted Uzumaki Naruto in taking care of the business he took control of after Matsuzaki Arikko (look Jiraiya-sama's contacts, Tea Country for further reference) was forced to take sick leave after he suffered a heart attack and was ordered rest. Uzumaki-san has also made an effort to benefit the local community by helping to establish a  
_  
No. _By taking action to establish a fire brigade_.

That was good. That was public-minded and respectable and in no way implicated breaking cover even though that was what had actually happened.

Morino Idate was easy; a member of the Wasabi family, Ibiki himself would help her cover that one. The mist trio became immigrants from the Water Country. There was her report: all technically speaking accurate and intentionally misleading. This wouldn't fly if not for Jiraiya-sama, of course, not in a hundred years. But Jiraiya-sama wouldn't want troubles for Naruto and so he would have to keep her out of trouble as well.

"We are heavy, aren't we?" she asked from the empty room. "You have to take responsibility of a lot of people with a lot of baggage. But it's weight you carry well. I don't think your dream of becoming a Hokage is so far-fetched as many think." She could see him standing there in front of him, in that silly orange jumpsuit, flushing a little and scratching his head in a bashful manner, grinning like the sun. Was she a mother figure or a loyal follower at this point, a friend like Naruto would prefer to see it or something else entirely? In a complicated world sometimes the simplest things were the hardest to describe. She didn't feel entirely easy – not easy at all, in fact – doing this, but at least she could honestly tell herself that she was no traitor. And sometimes it was better to break the rules than not break them.

Mizuki had never given her a child and she didn't know if she would ever have any. But in a way the winner had taken the spoils; Tsubaki was kind of like mother and it was all thanks to the one who had beaten Mizuki.

It was a shock to her, the way some tight, painful know relaxed in her chest and how free and good it made her feel.

**028. Children**

Naruto didn't really notice the wary looks he received from the Makimura citizens because he was so used to be looked at funnily. Familiarity may breed contempt, yes, but contempt also breeds familiarity and mostly he didn't bother to wonder what he had done now to deserve it when a mother with a baby crossed the street when he walked towards her on his way home. The Makimura adults readily acted accordingly to his expectations.

But much to the horror of their long-suffering parents, Naruto had gained a small following of children who thought he was the_ coolest thing ever_.

It started with the little girl in yellow yukata whose cat he saved after it had climbed up a Torii. The girl played a lot in the park and of course she had told her friends of the "nice nii-san". Being called nii-san made Naruto feel kind of old, but when little Risa-chan was upset that her friends called her a lying liar (hem on fire!) he climbed up a tree for the lot to prove he could. Then there was a little boy that one of the girls took pity on, little Hiro-kun from the poor side of the town who ran outside without shoes and who was much too thin. Mariko-chan started feeding him and she asked Naruto if Hiro-kun could run some simple errands for the constructors. After that Hiro told the rest of the kids he saw following Naruto around where to find him and before he could say "frog" Naruto was up to his eyebrows in little kids. He didn't mind it, just made some clones and had them play ninja with his little fans.

The adult, now, they were on red-hot pins and needles. They told their children that Satou was a bad man and they should stay away from him, but only the most obedient few actually did. Naruto-nii obviously wasn't a man so why did they go calling him so, and he wasn't bad because he played with them even though he was one of the big kids, he could be _a team of his own_ and he smiled all the time and never shouted at them, so obviously their parents were wrong.

Naruto was thought to be a yakuza leader before his first week in Makimura was over. He only started to wise up to the fact that something funny was going on Day 15 when a new kid joined the group. Satou Atsushimaru – that poor, poor boy, what had his parents been thinking? – just so happened to share the surname with his alter ego, the most common surname in Tea Country. He was tiny and had a gap where one of his milk teeth had fallen off, his smile was devastatingly cute and he tried to bite Naruto when he said so. Naruto liked him immediately. It wasn't the real Naruto, but one of his clones and they were in a park when a young, harried-looking man in a police's uniform ran to them.

"Atsushimaru, please come here. We need to go home," he pleaded with his son and extended his hand, walking towards them so slowly now, as if to not startle some wild beast.

"So you are Maru-kun's father? I'm Satou Naruto, it's nice to meet you!" he grinned and extended his hand. But his grin dropped when he realized that the man's face was gray and sickly, and even his lips had lost all colour.

**029. Birth**

While Narutwo was getting confused and suspicious, Naruto was busy trying to avoid getting glue in his hair while he was changing the wallpapers in the ex-whorehouse, with the help of himselves, the girls, Miwa-chan and Idate.

"How are the girls' lessons going?" he asked Idate. He had asked his friends to give his fire brigade some taijutsu training to enlarge their chakra stores to make learning jutsu easier. After that the other girls had gotten into it as well because life could be dangerous in a big place like Makimura and self-defense was always good. He couldn't stay here forever to protect them, but he and Idate could teach them to protect themselves. The girls would probably get to genin level at most even if they practiced dedicatedly even after he left, but that was plenty enough against normal muggers and creeps.

"They are very motivated," Idate answered and looked up from where he was kneeling under the window. He was making doubly sure the boring neural brown and white rolls colour-matched by unrolling a length of each and checking them against the others in good light.

"We do our best, of course," one of the girls shouted from the ladder. They were in the lobby, the biggest room in the whole house. There wasn't much light because the windows were small and she was hanging a new lamp from the ceiling.

"We are going to make you _so proud_ of us," another one, Yuriko-chan was her name, promised with low, lilting voice as she walked past him. She was carrying a bucket of glue and wearing an ugly gray apron, but she smiled like the sun and when she touched his hand, Naruto blushed a little bit. "Anything for you, Naruto-kun." The girls really liked to tease him; it was kind of embarrassing, but at least Ero-sensei wasn't there to rib him to death over it.

"I think we should have a small party once this work is done, Naruto-kun. To celebrate your new enterprise," Miwa-chan said. Her voice was happy, but she was glaring kunai after Yuriko-chan.

"That would be great," Idate said faithfully and handed Miwa-chan a new roll. "We could shop for supplies together, I haven't seen that much of Makimura yet."

This enterprise was worth a party, hell yes! It was named the Satou Corparation because he wasn't supposed to tell anyone his real name, but Naruto knew it was named after him. First a bridge and now a corporation; he knew that this was the birth of a great legend. He just had that feeling, like a storm gathering in the horizon, and Narauto had never been afraid of storms. He wouldn't admit to a foxy grin, but it had a lot of teeth.

**030. Death**

Doihara Taiki was plotting treason. As a Kiri hunter-nin he knew precisely how difficult it could be to escape from the village. From the moment on you walked through the doors of the Kirigakure Ninja Academy the village owned you, body and soul, and you only got out in a body bag. Now, Mizushima Konatsu and her brother weren't such trouble. They weren't even truly graduated, they weren't worth much investigation. He could simply write home and tell there were now two nameless graves in Tea Country and that would be the end of it. He himself was a different case.

It was a game of wait. He had to play time until Sannin Jiraiya returned and he could defect properly to Naruto's superior officer and be entered in Konoha's registry on probation. After that he would cease to be Kiri's internal problem and become lumped in with the greater problem called Konoha. It would make him… not safe, precisely, but safer. If he was lucky he would manage to squirm his way into that comfortable niche where he wasn't worth the trouble trying to get to him would be. He was a hunter-nin, but he hadn't made _name_ for himself. The world at large wouldn't know or care that Doihara Taiki was no longer a shinobi of Kiri. His former village wouldn't lose face.

But before he could get to that, he still had a little less than fifty days to last, which meant he needed an excuse to remain in Makimura.

"What are you doing?" Tsubaki asked, walking behind him. Taiki wasn't entirely at ease with his back turned to someone who regarded him with such suspicion, but it couldn't be helped, and in this strange little commune and its unofficial hierarchy the Konoha jounin outranked him.

"Trying to come up with a good lie," he answered honestly, staring at the white paper in front of him. They were in the safe house and tried to spend their time, waiting for Naruto to return from the building under reconstruction. Well, he was waiting and Tsubaki was keeping an eye on him, the only one beside Naruto who had a chance against him in a single combat.

"I see," Tsubaki sighed and sat back down. Taiki had a feeling she really did.

He could be investigating something that had potential to be a threat to Kiri – but not so big a threat he would be sent back-up. Something that required time to properly investigate, something that had some relevance to Kiri even from Tea Country. Maybe a cult would do the trick? Something to do with… the jinchuuriki! Now that he'd gotten an inspiration the plan came together with ease. The cult preached world peace and universal love, so it wasn't an immediate threat, but the word jinchuuriki always rated vigilance. The cult leader taught that the jinchuuriki were in fact living saints who protected the world from the biju and would one day lead the Elemental Countries to an era of peace and prosperity. A statement which was laughable to anyone who knew anything about the Mizukage, who knew how the other villages used their living cages as living weapons, but what could you expect from a back-water nut job guru? And he simply required a few weeks to properly infiltrate the cult to ensure it truly was as harmless as it sounded.

His pen danced across the paper. Now Konatsu and Kaede were dead and he had joined a cult. All in a good day's work.


	7. Chapter 7

**The Martial Arts of Friendship and Feminism**

* * *

**031. Sunrise**

Jiraiya was sitting cross-legged in a small, dirty inn room, drinking sake and wondering how his errant student was doing. He knew that Umino Iruka wouldn't have graduated a complete dunderhead and that Tea Country was as safe a place as they came outside Konoha's walls, but this was Naruto. He had long since come to the conclusion that Naruto's good luck at gambling was some karmic recompense for his abysmal luck in life. If there was an accident, incident, attack or catastrophe happening within five miles of Naruto, he could be counted on to get caught in the cross-fire.

(This theory didn't explain how Tsunade-hime could be so unlucky, but he was convinced that Karma just was a bitch who had it in for the Sannin.)

Jiraiya hadn't been there for Naruto when he was a kid. Partly this was because he had been honestly dreadfully busy, but partly because watching someone who was so much like Minato and Kushina at the same time had been painful – and he had a lot of experience in running from pain. When he had accepted Naruto as a student he had intended to make up for his past neglect and care for his friends' son, and _of course_ Iwa of all places had to start acting up.

Iwagakure wasn't precisely at the peak of their power now either, having yet to fully recover their strength from the losses of the last war – which was the only reason they hadn't attacked Konoha yet, after the Chunin Exam Invasion. That kerfuffle had sent very mixed signals to the Hidden Villages. On one hand, if a village was strong enough that an invasion of two villages – and one of them a member of the Big Five – could be crushed in an afternoon, that village was obviously strong. On the other hand, a village that had lost its Kage _had_ to be weakened. It had taken him a few weeks to find out that there was a lot of plausible deniability going on in Iwa right now. The Tsuchikage wasn't officially aware of the plans of some of his elite jounin at all, and if things fell through he could declare them missing-nin and call it a day.

Ah, politics! That was one mistress that liked her whips, chains, blindfolds and gags. Hmm, maybe a new Icha Icha about a few Iwa jounin who bore _completely coincidental_ resemblance to certain Iwa high-ups and a busty, kinky noblewoman dominatrix… That stuff always sent the Tsuchikage up a wall.

The second best part about writing porn was all the barely veiled insults you could throw. With plausible deniability, of course.

This particular situation was about unnamed Iwa personage contacting a missing-nin for a job. Completely unremarkable, unless you suspected said missing-nin of being part of Akatsuki. Jiraiya was fairly certain that Iwa wasn't up to date with that, but this didn't make the situation any better. Akatsuki, Red Dawn, the bane of his and more importantly Naruto's existence.

"Here's to you, Naruto. Wait some more weeks yet," he said and toasted to the empty room. The sunrise wormed its way in through the tiny window and painted golden-red patches on the off-white walls. He was just drunk enough that it felt very symbolic and meaningful. Now if only his faithful network would bring back some news from Makimura, but Matsuzaki had been suspiciously quiet. Oh, well, no news was good news, surely?

To hell with optimism, maybe he should write Tsunade and ask for a report.

**032. Sunset**

That same day Mizushima Konatsu celebrated being dead with her brother. The sun had set on their old life and new was still hiding behind the horizon. The private party included a huge bowl of take-out ramen, courtesy of their new boss who was completely addicted to the stuff, apple dumplings courtesy of Miwa – and a fresh batch of apple bombs in her scroll, these set to explode on impact – and tea with just a touch of sake, courtesy of Tsubaki-sempai and herself. In Kiri, when you were old enough to kill for the village, you were old enough to drink, and if you drank enough to kill your liver or to get yourself killed in a prompter manner, you were obviously too dumb to live anyway. Alcohol-assisted gene pool cleansing.

Konatsu wasn't that stupid. She had added to sake directly to the boiling water and boiling destroyed alcohol, only leaving the fang of the taste behind. Her liver was going to remain completely virginal until she hit sixteen and so was her brother's if he didn't want his head bashed in. It was a matter of luxury to her, to be able to afford to basically throw away alcohol that comforted her.

"Are we going to stay here, Natsu?" Kaede asked and leaned back against his arm, watching the sun set behind the roofs in a fiery red and amber ball rather than her. The house didn't have much in the way of a porch, but it was a good place to sit on all the same. The ground still hadn't recovered from the beating it had received when Naruto had taken on Taiki and Konatsu felt her mouth twitching at the memory.

"For now at least. This isn't a bad place to regroup," she promised breezily. They had gotten out with their lives. She still had a hard time believing it had been this easy, but they were in a peaceful, uninteresting country, under the wing of a very powerful – if somewhat _special_ – young shinobi who was a student of one of the Sannin, they had a job that would pay for lodgings of their own in a few months' time and they were officially dead.

Really, it could only be better if they could somehow safely rub this to their father's face, but alive was better than petty satisfaction.

"That's good. I like it here, and some of those girls show real promise," Kaede said and sipped his tea. It was true that they weren't all horrible and in time they would be pretty decent fighters for civilians. Being a fire brigade intendant wasn't what she intended to do her whole life, but she would keep practicing with Taiki and whip those girls up to shape and see then what she wanted to do with her life. Who knew, maybe in a few years' time Naruto would have some real combat work for her to do? And maybe he would be up for fling when they were older. Konatsu wasn't infatuated like some of his rescuees, but he obviously had good genes and their baby would be kick-ass.

She was going to say something nice and inane when a voice that rattled the newly fixed windows sounded from the house behind their backs.

"WHAT YOU MEAN, THEY THINK I'M A YAKUZA BOSS!"

"Oh dear, somebody clued him in," Kaede laughed. He hadn't been too keen to tell Naruto what people really thought of him and neither had Konatsu, if only because watching the misunderstandings breed new, fascinating misunderstandings had been so much fun.

"So do you think we should tell him he's a cult leader too?" she asked. The conversation inside was going on at lower volume now and they couldn't quite make out the words through the closed door.

"Maybe we should leave that to another day?" Kaede proposed and toasted her. The tea was only lukewarm now, but something still warmed in her stomach. It was a nice, temperate night and she was feeling very mellow.

"I will make friends with them and show them I'm not a criminal! This is a promise!" Naruto declared, now clearly heard through to door. Konatsu almost snorted the rest of her tea up her nose at the thought of how that would go down and Kaede honestly giggled.

"How about we make a bet, Natsu?" he proposed. "How many people will beg for their lives before Naruto is through befriending them?"

She watched Kaede smile, Kaede laugh, Kaede live. Kaede who had been bullied for his unisex name up to the point when he stabbed one of the bullies with his practice kunai, Kaede who had the will to live, but not the skills to fight her. Her brother would live, now. Just for that she would have two kick-ass babies and give one to Naruto.

**033. Too much**

Yamamoto Takumo was a frustrated man when he returned home after yet one more day of futile attempts to find something they could arrest Satou Naruto over. After the initial bloodbath had ceased there had been rather annoying lack of obvious law-breaking. Oh, he didn't suspect for a second that Satou did engage in drug dealing, money laundering and extortion… Though for some reason he appeared to have very dim view on prostitution… It was truly obvious that he had ninja background, for never before had it been this difficult to find even the least credible clues of organized crime going on.

A part of him was even happy it was so difficult; at least for now he didn't have to wonder how they could arrest the boy-man. Being so pathetically happy about this didn't make him happy at all.

"That bad today?" Reiko asked, peeking through the kitchen door. She was wearing a pink apron with print that read KISS THE COOK. So he did and immediately felt a little better.

"It's good to be home, dear. Where's Ruka-chan?" he asked and allowed his shoulders to relax. Wonderful scent of fish and ginger wafted from the kitchen.

"She's sleeping in her cradle, finally. She's been very restless today, I think she may be teething," Reiko answered and gestured him to sit down. It was a wonderful scene, domestic, comfortable, intimate. Of course it was too good to last. There was a firm knock on the door and when Takumo opened, the polite greeting words turned to ashes on his mouth as he behold the cheery visage of one Satou Naruto with basket in hand.

"Satou…san," he stammered, his thought turning to his wife and his little girl, too young to even understand what kind of danger her father had put her in. How foolish he had been! Just because old Saehara had never attempted to have him killed didn't mean a shinobi would think such an action more trouble than it was worth!

"Hi, I'm Satou Naruto and you are Yamamoto Takumo, right? It's nice to meet you, can I come inside?" Satou was all sunshine and smile as he slipped by Takumo, without bothering to wait for permission. There were two people at his back, a girl and a boy approximately the same age. Both of them were so small, but they carried blades openly – and walked with the deadly grace of a really big cat.

"And you are Yamamoto-san's wife, right? Here, this is for you." Satou presented the basket to his lovely, brave wife. Reiko's face was pale, but her mouth was a determined line as she accepted the gift. There was a bottle in the basket and a small paper package, probably full of some dry goods. Reiko thanked him with a voice that only trembled a little and Naruto turned back to face him.

"So, I found out you have these really funny ideas about me…" he started and Takumo broke there and then.

"Please don't… There are plenty of crimes to busy myself with in a town the size of Makimura. Please leave my family in peace." He had never begged for mercy in his whole life, but never before had his family been threatened. If only it was just him, then he could spit at the shinobi-yakuza's face and at least go down with his honor intact. The hate he felt for himself over what he had just offered burned in his stomach like raw alcohol, but even he had his price. The thought of his family dead or worse – and he knew that any yakuza worth his first ryo could come up with ever-so-worse – was just too much for him to bear.

"I didn't mean it like that!" Satou protested and his face twisted into a very convincing facsimile of hurt and the unnamed girl whispered something to the boy that sounded like "first time." That didn't sound promising at all. "I'm going to befriend you."

**034. Not enough**

At first Naruto was at a loss as to how he would convince the Chief of Police of his innocence, exactly. Usually showing people you were strong enough to kick their ass at least got them to listen, but he couldn't very well fight a civilian; that just wouldn't be sporting. It would be like, like Neji beating up Hinata-chan. After doing something like that _he_ would need the corrective kick to the behind.

In Konoha asking someone to train with you was what you did when you wanted to make friends, at least for the ninja. Naruto was pretty hazy on how the civilians did it, as he'd never had a civilian friend before he started taking C-rank mission outside the village and there befriending people mostly involved defending them. He had never gone to a movie before Kakashi-sensei ordered his team to watch the Princess Fuun movie just before their totally awesome mission where he got to safe his first princess and friendly activity to him was a training spar. Eating together was friendly, he did it with Iruka-sensei, but he wasn't in the habit of going to cafes or restaurants; no-one could outright refuse to accept him in, but the service was usually cold enough to frost over his eyebrows.

Friendship and martial arts were practically the same thing in Naruto's life. Eventually he had just decided to soften things a bit, tone them down.

"You know I'm training a fire brigade, right? Well, the Great Naruto Fire Brigade hereby challenges the Makimura Police Department to a sports day! We will have all kinds of competition, like hitting the bull's eye and swimming and races, and I'm not even letting Idate compete in that because it would be unfair. It will be fun. And friendly."

Yamamoto and his wife were staring at him. Their eyes bugged, their mouth hung open just a little. Naruto was used to funny looks, but these were the sort of funny he had gotten from Kiba when he once proposed they should glue the practice kunai to the ceiling back in the Academy, like what he just proposed was just plain too silly for words. He frowned and wondered what it could be. Maybe Yamamoto thought that girls competing against his police was foolishness? A small storm cloud begun to gather over his head as Naruto considered that possibility. If it was so, then he would ask Tsubaki-chan and Konatsu-chan to take part as well and kick everybody's asses, just out of principle. This was something everybody learned at young age in hidden villages: being told you fought like a girl was no insult and the girls were ready to prove it. Anytime.

(Being told you fought like a fangirl was a different thing entirely, but even that one insulted non-fangirls much more than it insulted boys.)

"Is this some kind of gender prejudice thing?" he asked. "Because there is nothing wrong being a female. Half of humanity is female. Your wife is a female! You don't want to insult her, do you?" Yamamoto looked suitably panicked at this thought, though he was still gaping. His wife, whose name he hadn't heard yet, had closed her mouth and tilted her head a little. She looked at him really hard, like she was trying to see through him like a Hyuuga. It was kind of unnerving and Naruto rubbed the back of his head, grinning sheepishly.

So, it appeared that convincing the police that he wasn't a criminal wasn't enough; he also had to convince them that girls weren't weak. Well, his girls were up to the task and Yamamoto's wife would probably make him sleep on the couch as punishment for his chauvinism anyway. The thought left him feeling that warm satisfaction he got after a job well done especially if Iruka-sensei or Kakasi-sensei – or even Ero-sensei, for that matter – praised him. He was going to make the world, or at least Makimura, a better place to live one idiot at a time.

**040. Sixth sense**

_Some things can't be quantified_, Yakushi Nono once told her surrogate son. _Cut a human down to the atomic level and you still won't find love or loyalty or soul. Some things can only be sensed._

Sometimes even ninja have to make do with ordinary postal services. Doihara Taiki didn't have a summon contract or any sort of ninja animals so his letter travelled two day over the waves in a postal ship. Its destination was a small port town named Hakusuicho, because, so the old tales said, there the wind blew the water white. In Hakusuicho a Kiri agent who went by the name Akira sent on the heavily encrypted report. Unknown to his village, though, the lowly chunin who felt himself underpaid and undervalued was also part of certain infamous Sound leader's information network and diligently copied every word. He couldn't break the signet, but he had a simple tool that consisted of two sheets of glass and a bright lamp under them. He slid the envelope between the layers and turned the lamp on, reading the letter through the paper. It wasn't easy, as the paper had been folded and the kanji overlapped, but he managed with the aplomb of long practice.

As the report hadn't been stamped as either Busy, Classified or For Eyes Only, it waited two more days in the small Hakusuicho outpost for the round of a courier-nin. The original and the copy both reached their destination seven days after they had been sent, one in Kiri's mission office and the other on the table of Otogakure's Head of Intelligence, one Yakushi Kabuto. When the Mizushima family hosted a small, sedate gathering to celebrate that the honor of their family had been redeemed through very final means, Kabuto knocked on the door to one of Orochimaru's laboratories. He had picked this moment on purpose. Orochimaru was always distracted when the statistical analysis of the use of different recombinant viruses for gene transfer.

"What is it, Kabuto?" Orochimaru asked with an impatient voice from behind the closed door. Kabuto opened it and stepped inside.

The laboratory was blindingly white and blindingly brightly lit. Jars greeted him with a colourful glow as the light reflected off green and amber liquids inside. They held organs: hearts, lungs, eyeballs, brains. But today the room was dominated by colour-coded files full of raw data from the current experiment and the statistics from several previous ones. Orochimaru graced him with a stern look as he flipped through a couple of different pages on several ledger sheets in two different ledger books spread over a side table.

"Orochimaru-sama, I have received an intelligence report that I believe demands my presence in Tea Country," he intoned smoothly and bowed his head respectively. Orochimaru's modus operandi was to find the downtrodden and the abused, the diamonds in the rough, and then claim their absolute loyalty for himself. Their only worth in their own eyes was that which they could give to their Orochimaru-sama; but nothing comes for free.

The cost of this tactics was that cynical, naturally suspicious Orochimaru had become highly complacent in his _faith_ in his followers loyalty. Oh, the irony.

"Do as you feel you must," Orochimaru snapped in clear dismissal and turned back to his papers. Kabuto didn't smile even behind his back. Ordinarily it wouldn't be quite this easy, but right now a bomb going off in the corridor would be only an annoyance to the Shodaime Otokage.

Kabuto felt… a strange sort of fulfillment that he thought he would rather like to explore some more. Granted, the report mentioned _Satou_ Naruto – but Kabuto had developed a good eye for details and even better intuition over the years. A jinchuuriki cult and Naruto in the same sentence were too big of a coincidence. It was like some benign spirit had whispered to his ear, like he was a yumemi, a dream gazer, whose dreams whispered of true things. He was completely, absolutely certain that Naruto was recalling him at long last.

"Maybe I should take the Uchiha with me," he proposed. "He has been demanding lately." And demanding was the last thing Orochimaru wanted now. He pushed his glasses up his nose, allowing the glint of light on glass to hide the tiniest hint of glint in his eyes. This was the greatest proof Orochimaru was taking him for granted: the Snake Sannin didn't even hesitate.

* * *

AN: Shiro = white, mizu = water, cho = town. Again, GWG? I'm just tacking these components after one another.

EDIT: I have been told that when combining multiple kanji, you use the Chinese readings, not the Japanese. Ergo the town name Shiromizucho was changed to Hakusuicho. That... actually sounds a LOT better. Thank you to reviewer Hafny. (And I'm not sure if Makimura's right or wrong, but it stays anyway. At this point I just coldn't think of my little brain baby as anything but Makimura.)


	8. Chapter 8

**Where Slapstick Comedy Has a Surprising Fan (Or Maybe It's All Epicaricacy)**

* * *

**036. Smell**

Ono Tsubaki's letter left in a post cart the same day Doihara Taiki's left in a postal ship. The letter reached a small Konoha outpost in the Fire Country in five days' time, after which it only took one day for a messenger hawk to fly it to the village. The report hit the mission desk just before the end of Umino Iruka's shift, who read it through and smiled, satisfied that Naruto was enjoying his downtime and getting along with the locals well. Really, a fire brigade! He was growing up nicely.

Danzo got a copy of the report – as per his orders to keep him informed of everything and anything that concerned the jinchuuriki – the next morning and he knew something smelled fishy there. He was Konoha's unofficial, but also undisputed champion of circling around the truth in his reports, both written and verbal, in a way that made the poor concept faint from the vertigo. He couldn't put his finger on any single word or sentence, but the whole practically screamed "plausible deniability." Together with Jiraiya's letter, which asked for news about Uzumaki since his informant in Makimura had not reported to him, the stench reached to high heavens. Was Ono in league with Orochimaru after all? Had Uzumaki been turned or captured? Sandaime had been entirely too trusting with the woman and Godaime had followed his unfortunate example.

"Your name for the purpose of this mission is Sai," he told the young shinobi, Id ROOT522, who was kneeling in front of his desk. "You have successfully completed a C-class escort mission, the details of which are in this file. On your way to Konoha you will stop in Makimura and surreptitiously make contact with Uzumaki, assuming he is still in the town, and find out his true circumstances there. Be prepared to eliminate jounin Ono if she shows signs of treachery." He presented a manila folder and his operative rose from the floor to accept it.

"Yes, Danzo-sama," his operative said and stood there alertly, yet his body language subtly submissive. The pale face was like a porcelain doll's, perfect and perfectly emotionless. Danzo frowned.

The Root-raised operatives were his most loyal subordinates, most trusted as far as he trusted anyone, and that was the reason he had picked one of them for the mission. Uzumaki had in the past showed remarkable ability to establish rapport and compromise people with similar past experiences to his own and Danzo wanted to keep the common frame of reference as small as possible – hence the very opposite of Uzumaki, one raised with harsh discipline, with no purpose beyond the mission and Konoha's best, one whose steel hadn't been chipped and dulled by the senseless prejudice of people. No personal tragedies ever occurred in Root because nothing was personal there, not even their own selves. The downside to this, though, was that the Root-raised were rarely apt at faking humanity.

"Smile," he ordered and the operative's mouth curled upwards and he allowed his eyelids to slide closed. Danzo had to hold back a grimace.

"Practice that in front of a mirror and purchase a book on human interaction. You are not to allow the target to engage in ethical debate with you under any circumstance. Do you have questions?" The operative correctly took this as a dismissal and left, leaving Danzo to the rest of his reports.

Jiraiya suspected several high-places Iwagakure jounin of working together with Kakuzu, an S-raking missing-nin of Takigakure who was now suspected of being a member of the elusive Akatsuki. Their goal appeared to be to assassinate a high-ranking genin-team leader with political connections and framing Sunagakure for hiring Kakuzu, apparently in hopes that Suna working together with the man who tried to assassinate Shodaime _after_ the Chunin Exam Invasion would sufficiently enrage Konoha to fully commit to a new war. Jiraiya had narrowed the possible targets down to Sarutobi Asuma and his team based on the fact that he was Sandaime's son and his genin were all future leaders of their influential clans. This would have to be dealt with… but the situation might be a possibility as well. After all, more than one person could play the game of framing.

He had for some time kept an eye on a young Iwa jounin called Deidara. He was A-class already and had the potential to reach S-class status within few years – much too dangerous an asset to allow for Iwa to keep. His spies had reported that the young jounin was somewhat emotionally unstable and apparently involved in a co-dependent relationship with a young chunin of his village. Maybe if the girl was to die and it appeared Kakuzu's work it would drive him to blame his Kage and teacher? There were definitely possibilities.

So Danzo concentrated in turning a bad situation advantageous to Konoha the best he could, trusting that the Uzumaki situation was under control at least for now.

He might have been a little less confident had he known that the book the newly-named Sai bought was Personhood: The Art of Being Fully Human – an opus which, despite its name, was not a psychology book at all, but a religious one about enlightenment of soul, written by a leader of a small free love practising cult.

**037. Sound**

That same day at Makimura, the fire brigade girls were preparing for the sports festival the next day, with the help of the inn girls and the casino boat girls. Since it had taken Naruto that long to get the approval not only from the police chief, but also the mayor and the Makimura Municipal Council, the event ended up conjoined with the opening day of the two brand new inns in the town. Tourists were enjoying the excitement and the locals were running in frightened circles. Miwa had never thought herself the sort to enjoy pettiness, but she was having grand time watching them fretting over the kindest, gentlest person she had ever known. Tents were being set up, the arena was being prepared near their normal practice ground on the beach, and some of the inn girls were baking in preparation for the festival.

"Move it to the right a bit... now it's good," she ordered around some of her friends on where to put the podium. She wanted to have a beautiful background for pictures and rooftops peeking over the tree line would have ruined the scenery.

"Phew! Now it's all done," Yuriko wiped her sweat off and smiled at their accomplishment. She was Miwa's best friend and the one in charge of the new Fire Heart Inn. Wind was playing with her long, black tresses and Miwa wished for a moment that she could be as beautiful. Maybe then Naruto-kun would… "Life sure has been grand lately, hasn't it?" Yuriko laughed and even her voice was alluring.

"Ah! Miwa-chan, you look fine!" A voice called from behind her. Miwa turned to the direction of it and met the eyes of Morino Idate. He was carrying a small parcel wrapped in bright red silk paper in his hands and he switched his weight from one leg to another.

"What have you got there?" she asked and wondered what she might have ordered and then forgotten. Food was covered so it couldn't be spices, they had the ribbons for the award ceremony and the new uniforms had arrived just yesterday and the parcel was much too small anyway and Tsubaki-sempai was taking care of everything related to the finishing fireworks…

"It's… I hope you like it. Let's eat together tomorrow," Idate said, thrust the parcel to her hands and disappeared from the place quickly, befitting the winner of the Todoroki Shrine Race. Miwa raised an eyebrow and opened the rustling paper carefully. Inside was a bira-bira, a long hair pin with metal strips attached by rings to the body of the pin. They tinkled pleasantly in the wind and Miwa could only think _oh shit_.

"Any ideas on how to let a guy down nicely?" she asked Yuriko; Idate was a valuable member of their group, teaching them self-defense and Miwa was sure his connections with the Wasabi family could be worth a lot later. She didn't want to estrange him, but saying no wasn't something she had done a lot before and she was certain she could only come across as crude. She couldn't afford crude, Naruto-kun trusted her to handle his business.

"Uh, Miwa-dear, I know you are head over heels for Naruto-kun, but have you at any point asked him about his age?" Yuriko asked and her voice was at once sympathetic and slightly amused. Ting-a-ling-a-ling went the bira-bira, the noise of it filling the sky as Miwa's entire life came to a halt. She hadn't asked. But Naruto-kun was a shinobi, surely that earned him at least a few age points to go with the years!

"How old is he?" she asked. It wasn't like she was that old either, just sixteen. Fifteen, no trouble, and fourteen would be kind of problematic now, but one more year and the difference would seem smaller already. Ting-a-ling-a-ling went the bira-bira.

"Thirteen. You didn't think I decided to forgo the race for his heart because I don't like orange, did you?" Her words were kind and kind of self-deprecating. Every word was clearly understandable and the sentence even made sense grammatically, but the whole of it – it was madness.

Just thirteen. Naruto-kun had taken out whole yakuza family, taken out Saehara at the peak of his power and saved them all, had fought against that Kiri jounin, which was the highest ninja rank aside from Kage if she had understood it right, and he was just thirteen! _Thirteen!_ Okay, so he was bit on the short side, but THIRTEEN! This was like, like finding out the great kami Izanagi was still in his diapers when he created the world!

"Thirteen! Why are all the good ones taken, gay or thirteen?" Miwa moaned to the high heavens and then winced when every head within hearing distance turned towards her. "There really isn't any way to make that sound a little less perverted, is there?" she whispered over the sound of the wind and the sound of her heart breaking a little. It was a lovely ornament, really, and he didn't want to offend Idate, but there was no way she could ever wear it now.

Ting-a-ling-a-ling!

**038. Touch**

Naruto loved festivals. New Year's festival, Tanabata, the Konoha Cherry Blossom Festival, Hanami and the Lantern Floating Festival, he loved them all. Even the Kyuubi's Demise Anniversary was dear to him now that he knew a bit more about why people were so much more horrid to him than normal that night. Today all Makimura would bear witness to the ultimate test of public-minded fitness: the Makimura Police versus the Great Naruto Fire Brigade: Sports Day! The opening of the Fire Heart Inn and the Peaceful Rest Inn just made it that much better.

(Taiki and Konatsu-chan had protested that Peaceful Rest sounded like a cemetery's name, but they had been voted to just be morbid like that. Kiri influence and all.)

It hadn't been easy to arrange, either. It was enough to speak with the police chief, after that he had to g to the mayor. The mayor had then promptly entered Konatsu and Kaede's "begging count" and the Makimura Municipal Council had raised the count to four after he was sent there. Turns out that giving every police a free day the same day is a bad idea and when people think you are involved in organized crime no-one trusts your kage bunshin to uphold the law.

"Don't worry, we barely approach organized on a good day,"Konatsu had snickered and Kaede had thwacked her over the head. It _hadn't helped_ at all.

But now the day had come at long last! Tourists were strolling among the ramen stands and the confection stands buying things and commenting how exotic it was that firefighting was a women's job here. Naruto's eyes picked Yamamoto from the crowd and he made his way to the man. Yamamoto was looking around wild-eyed and he jumped when Naruto shouted his greeting and grabbed his arm. When Naruto frowned he grimaced and that wasn't the purpose at all, but…

Naruto liked touching people. He was the kinetic type, like Iruka-sensei had called him once. He learned best with his body rather than by reading or listening, he liked hugging people and clinging on to them, he liked the friendly shoves he got from his sparring partners after the spar and thwacks to the head from Sakura-chan. Praise always sounded the best when it was accompanied by a hand ruffling his hair too. Naruto knew it could be scary when people you thought were evil touched you; Kakashi-sensei had called it psychological warfare. But he didn't really have experience about that since his enemies had never been the touchy-feely type and it was easy to forget.

"Come watch the kunai throwing competition," he asked and kept his hold, dragging the man after him. This was all about making friends so he should just act all natural.

The girls won the first competition, courtesy of finding out about it a week before the fact and Tsubaki-chan's instruction. Their accuracy wasn't the greatest even at the short range, but they consistently hit the target – and more importantly, hit it with the blade of the kunai. The men in police uniforms hit it with the handle as often as with the blade and the hit didn't count if the kunai didn't stay. It was a landslide victory and the spectators – all tourists and his local child following – cheered as the girls jumped at each other's necks. They looked great in their new uniforms: a high-collared coat with tight, buttoned sleeves and pants with the ankles bandaged like a ninja's.

"Huh, I guess you don't throw kunai here, this not being a hidden village?" he asked the police guy, deciding to be a cool and gracious winner. "You should, you can do cool things with them – and senbon! I met this really strong ninja called Haku, he – or she, it was kind of ambiguous, he dressed like a girl, but said she was a he – had this really strong ice bloodline and he could throw senbon so it stopped Sasuke's heart and lungs and suppressed his chakra, but still didn't really kill him for good. Boy, I was scared he was dead for a while and I kinda lost it…" This was when Naruto turned his face from the cheering, laughing girls to the man he was talking to and he noticed that Yamamoto's face had gone decidedly ashen. Oops, he had forgotten Tsubaki-chan's Golden Rule of Getting Along with Civilians: Never talk shop. Ever.

"But I didn't kill him! I mean, Haku did die, but he changed his mind in the middle of it so I didn't do it. And I'm not helping myself, am I?" Naruto drooped. Kakashi-sensei had always told him to stop his rambling two sentences sooner. Now he had really messed this one up, but maybe if he looked pitiful enough the police chief would decide he wasn't all that scary after all. No-one ever took him seriously when he made puppy dog eyes at them.

Yamamoto was opening and closing his mouth like a fish on dry land, but couldn't seem to say anything. Naruto wanted to pat his hand comfortingly, but decided sadly that maybe their friendship hadn't reached that level yet.

**039. Taste**

The sports day was, as far as Naruto was concerned, pretty successful. The girls were getting along with the policemen, even if one of them punched this long-nosed guy to the stomach for calling her a pretty little kitty-cat. Yamamoto protested that wasn't getting along, looking really worried doing so, and Naruto pointed out she didn't kick him to the nuts so yes, it was. The policemen won the race and the fire brigade won the fireman carry race, the police won the swimming competition and the long jump and the firefighters the obstacle course. The score was even before the last competition of the day.

"After the obstacle course ribbons have been awarded follows the last competition of the day," Miwa announced through a megaphone. "A wheelbarrow race!" She twirled around on the stage that she had ordered constructed for announcing purpose. Naruto could see she was having a ball and was happy since she had seemed really sad that morning for some reason. Yamamoto made a funny choking noise and gave Naruto a _look_.

"Hi, Taiki. There are no real wheelbarrows involved in this one," Naruto explained to the man who seemed to be searching for them. He had intended to make the last competition something really exiting, but first Hiro-kun had made puppy eyes at Mariko-chan and then Mariko-chan had made puppy eyes at Naruto and he couldn't deal with puppy eyes as well as he could deliver. His mind always short-circuited at the first signs of sad, watery eyes, and then he'd begin to babble. That usually made the situation worse instead of better because the words weren't going through proper vetting and he wasn't all that tactful even under the best conditions. This was why he had quickly surrendered and agreed that yes, a wheelbarrow race was a great idea. "The participants actas wheelbarrows. Well, half of them anyway," he explained.

"How they act like a wheelbarrow?" Taiki asked, looking less than impressed. "Act as an inanimate object?" Maybe playing as a child went against the Kiri ninja way or something. So Naruto started to explain while the contestants arrived to the starting point. The policemen looked very red and embarrassed, the girls laughed. Someone was watching this through Naruto's eyes.

Kyuubi sometimes took interest in the going-ons around Naruto. This had become much more obvious after the four-tails fiasco that he still didn't want to talk about because he had almost killed Jiraiya-sensei. There didn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to why Kyuubi would watch this thing happen and not the other, but Naruto could feel something turning lazily within. Miwa-chan cracked the cymbals and after that everything happened quickly. Two of the police teams collided with each other before taking whole ten steps and suddenly there was a groaning pile of four where it was hard to say which arm and leg belonged to whom.

Naruto could have sworn he heard laughter, only not with his ears.

"I guess Kyuubi likes slapstick comedy. Who would have thought?" he mused. Then again, anything that involved people getting hurt even a little was probably part of his portfolio.

"What?" It was Taiki. His eyes were round and disbelieving.

"Kyuubi. You know, I'm a jinchuuriki and it just thought that was funny," he explained. He really, really didn't want to, now Yamamoto would be even more scared, but he had learned at young age that lying about things just made things worse in the long run. _If you are good it can get you out of trouble you wouldn't have gotten in the first place if you were a little more upstanding_, Iruka-sensei had said after he had told that Akamaru had eaten his homework. Akamaru had been very insulted and Naruto had apologized to him because Akamaru, a real puppy, was the uncrowned king of the sad puppy look.

Yamamoto's expression didn't change a bit, but Taiki was a whole another thing.

"You? A jinchuuriki?" he asked, and Naruto started to explain that he was sane and stable and completely non-homicidal, honest, but then Taiki already sat down right there on the ground, his face pale, and started sputtering something about a jinchuuriki cult and him being a cult leader.

"So you aren't a crime organization, but a cult?" Yamamoto asked, his face the picture of relief universal to those who have just learned they can push a problem off to someone else to solve. Naruto could see he was kind of getting what he wanted, but not really at all. Victory was supposed to taste sweet, but even as the fire brigade took the victory of the last race and the whole competition this tasted like ashes. Because…

"Not our department. As long as you don't break the laws, you can be as cultish as you want," Yamamoto promised.

"We are a cult? Why doesn't anyone tell me these things?" one of the inn girls asked from behind them, this time making Naruto jump. Riku was the oldest of them, easily over thirty years, a woman. And also really, really weird. It must have been all those years with the yakuza. "When is our next secret meeting? What deity are we praying to? Some sort of demon? What did Taiki-san say about you being a living saint?" she fired away. Kyuubi, Naruto could tell, was laughing its furry ass off. This was the taste of ashes, going from being yakuza to being a cultist. He had to make a report of this eventually and then Sakura-chan would murder him – if Iruka-sensei didn't beat her to it!

"I so did not need this sort of reputation."

**040. Sight**

Tsubaki was there to see when the first of Naruto's fire brigade members managed her first water jutsu.

It was the day after the sports day and the girls could be seen toting their trophy ribbons proudly, gold and white flagrant against their practice clothes; the worst rags they owned that they didn't mind getting wet, sweaty, dirty and torn. There was a spring to their steps Tsubaki hadn't seen before and she realized with a start that winning those competitions against much bigger men must have also won these girl-women back something very precious: their self-respect.

She had at that point learned five new B-class and three A-class jutsu, given several taijutsu lessons to Idate and had some of the best spars of her life _ever_ with Taiki and she had reached the conclusion that this trip had already made it to the top three of good decisions in her life. (Second place. The uncontested number one was becoming kunoichi back in the mists of her pre-pubescent past.) She had also helped the girls with kunai-throwing and some basic chakra-moulding exercises that Konatsu and Kaede seemed to have little patience for; being able to do and teach were two different things and Tsubaki found herself wondering if she might be trusted enough to take a genin team anytime soon after the Mizuki fiasco. Now _that_ relationship had made the number one bad, not-good, absolutely terrible decision of her life.

It was true that the Kiri duo had done much more for the students, as well as Idate who had made them run in the sand to grow their stamina and chakra stores. Even then she was proud as a mother hen with her new chicks when one of the girls spat a water bullet from her mouth. It was a rare gray day with wet clouds hanging low over the coast and the air was practically alight with the tension of a storm that hadn't quite broken out yet, the wind blowing from the sea in fast, unpredictable torrents. Maybe the moist, thick air that gave the jutsu that last push it needed or maybe it was the self-confidence boost that did it; chakra was half spiritual energy after all. It was there for those to see who would, how there was so much more to them now. If happiness was light the whole Makimura would have been lit up like a bonfire.

Machika was a lovely girl to look at, at age seventeen practically a woman already with big doe eyes, elegant nose and a kendo back – though in her case calling it a dancer's back might be more accurate. Yet even she didn't manage to look very becoming with her brown practice rags clinging to her skin with sweat and her hair plastered against her skull, her face red with exertion. But when the first bullet, a bit on the small side but still very cohesive and resilient, flew from her mouth for good ten meters and hit an old, rusted-through mooring pole and cleanly snapping it in half it was a sight to see. Her silly, joyful grin illuminated the whole beach.

"Wonderful, Machika!" Tsubaki shouted and applauded. The rest of the girls joined her and Machika flushed even redder, now out of pleasure. And soon the rest of them practically doubled their effort, encouraged by the success of their friends. The sight of them, tongue peeking between lips and eyes crossing from concentration here and there, it warmed her heart. As a jounin she was used to much less pleasant and considerably bloodier sights when she gazed upon the results of her efforts.

That was it, she had decided. She was going to become a teacher even if it took her a decade to get approved. Yet one more thing this trip had earned her and she was grateful.

* * *

AN: Oh Danzo, Danzo. "That sucks" is enough of a frame of reference for Naruto to work with. Also, you are a vile man. Congratulations for giving the world one new Akatsuki member.

About Naruto's age confusion, my theory is that the ninja children are actually rather tall – and muscled, obviously – for their age due to active chakra molding and a diet tailored precisely for the quick growth.


	9. Chapter 9

**Many Arrivals, Happy and Otherwise**

* * *

**041. Shapes**

Naruto knew something about love: it could take many shapes. Sometimes it was okay if you taunted a person if you didn't let anyone else do so. Some people shook their heads and wondered about why Naruto was so stupid about Sasuke, but Sasuke was his friend, despite of being an utter and total bastard about it at times. He called Naruto dead last, but there had been that one time after they became genin when Kiba did the same and Sasuke punched him. Aside from Iruka-sensei it was the first time someone shed blood for Naruto (that he was there to see); Kiba's nose bled quite a lot. That was friends with a total bastard kind of love. He made Naruto's nose bleed too later that day, but it was completely unrelated so it was okay.

Sometimes love took the shape of following after another person when they were being stupid just so that you could pick them up later when they fell; Shizune sure loved Tsunade-baachan a lot to go along with her all those years. Sometimes love was being at someone's side even at their worst time and making it all better. Iruka taught this to Naruto and Naruto honoured the lesson by giving the same to Gaara – with some beating added, but that was because it was Naruto and it was Gaara. Sometimes love was knowing when to be hard and when to be sympathetic like Kakashi-sensei did. Sakura-chan had her own brand of tough love too while Teuchi and Ayame liked to feed him.

And sometimes love was crazy-shaped and insisted that founding a cult was a great idea.

"So you have the world's strongest demon sealed into you?" Riku-baachan asked him. "And it can't get away?"

"Yeah, and no way it can get away! Yondaime was the greatest seal master in the history of ever," Naruto protested. He had always admired Yondaime the same as everyone else and while his regard had suffered a momentary lapse when he found out just why practically everyone hated him so, well, it was still better than Kyuubi killing everyone, right? At least now they were alive enough to hate him and Naruto could win their acknowledgement one day. It would be tough going, but hey, he was a hero! Iruka-sensei said so, that he was a hero for protecting everyone from Kyuubi, and Iruka-sensei calling him hero was worth anything, period.

Naruto never put it in words even in his own head, but sometimes love took the shape of undeserved forgiveness because the reason you were hated was also the reason someone gave you that love.

The safe house wasn't as much that these days as it was headquarters for Operation Whatever. Everybody seemed to think that Naruto had some great master plan, but the truth was that he just did the right thing and then other things happened that needed him to do something. The house was so full at every hour of the day that it was surprising when only Riku, Miwa and Tsubaki were there with him.

"And you want world peace?" Miwa-chan asked coyly. She had been kind of down lately, but now she was teasing him so everything was probably alright again.

"Of course. Isn't that, like, a requirement for _not_ being a dick?" Naruto hunched his shoulders, half expecting being hit for saying dick, but apparently Tsubaki-chan thought that if you were adult enough for hitai-ite you were adult enough to swear.

"I guess… worldly world is full of dicks then," she managed to day even though her voice hitched. Naruto was certain that she was laughing her ass off inside.

"I think you fill the minimum requirements for a saint, then: the first and last line of defense against the forces of darkness and world peace. I'm joining," Riku-baachan declared with magnanimous air. Narauto choked on his own spit.

"I'm a shinobi! Shinobi can't be saints!" he protested, thinking about Sakura-chan. She was so pretty when she was riled that Naruto felt guilty pleasure annoying her; it always made her eyes glitter like green lightning or sharp green glass shards, so very prettily. But he was sure he didn't want to annoy her _this much_.

"Then what about Rikudo Sennin? Isn't he a saint as well as a shinobi? He said that war does not determine who is right, only who is left, and not in the political sense, I would bet," Miwa-chan pointed out. Naruto chewed on his lower lip. He had been mocked a lot and he usually knew when that happened. He could also usually tell when someone was honest and this whole cult thing was a bit of both. On one hand they were jerking his chain, but on the other hand they had looked really, really impressed when he told them about Kyuubi and showed them the seal and he wasn't used to people being impressed by that unless they were sealing nuts or something. They had looked at him like he just defeated a whole army by himself or turned rocks into gold or something.

"Well, I would rather be a cultist than a criminal," Riku-baachan said primly. "Besides, real ninja believe in world peace and eternal friendship through superior firepower so that bit is alright. I can get behind it"

Now Tsubaki-chan wasn't laughing on the inside; she was laughing out loud.

It should be said that Riku's only contact with ninja had been through Naruto. But maybe she wasn't so wrong if "real" was used as a synonym for "admirable." Optimism was good for the soul after all.

**042. Triangle**

Morino Idate was involved in a love triangle. It wouldn't have been quite so embarrassing or depressing if his rival wasn't a thirteen years old boy with a crush on his equally thirteen years old teammate and no idea Miwa-chan ever gave him a second glance. She had hounded his steps like a particularly well-trained dog and if she hadn't been so obviously smitten stupid people could have gotten really wrong impression of her character.

"Do you think yoga would be a good idea? Should we chant?" She asked, kicking the leg of the counter she was sitting behind and scribbling on a page torn off from her account book.

"You realize that Naruto doesn't want a cult, right?" Idate asked back, even though the image of Naruto turning beet red when a bunch of girls started chanting under his window was pretty damn amusing.

"But isn't it just right that someone acknowledge the service he is doing for the world?" Miwa-chan asked and _scritch scritch_ went her pencil and while she talked to him she didn't even look up. She wasn't even wearing the bira-bira he had given her "What you think of these? Which one is better?" She pushed the paper to Idate who turned it around.

There were two... mantra, he thought, or maybe prayers? Apparently there was a difference between a mantra and a normal prayer, but damned if he knew what it was. Ninja weren't all that religious even one good day because pretty much every religion – with the exception of the Jashinism, which was for utter creeps only – had orders like Thou Shalt Not Kill and who wanted to be born as a cockroach in their next life? Better not to believe in the whole business at all. And after he left Konoha he became a merchant and they weren't precisely the most devout people ever either because money-making was bad for the soul too. But these two prayer-things looked like something that was indeed chantable.

_We meditate on the worshipable power and glory of Him who protects the world from the terrible Kyuubi no Yoko and who directs our understanding, and the One who sealed the beast into His belly._

_We meditate on the glory of the Being who protects the world from the terrible Kyuubi no Yoko and who shall lead us all to Light of Understanding and the One who sealed the beast into His belly._

"I think the second one is better," Idate managed to utter; Miwa-chan looked entirely serious as she accepted the paper back and read through the both options with critical eye.

The bell over the door to the shop rang and Miwa-chan slipped the paper back between the pages of the account book, standing to serve the family who had walked in. All were very obviously tourists in their straw hats and yukata with Makimura sights printed on the fabric. This was the last week they would need to man the store at all as someone named Sakuya had decided that Matsuzaki-san was in good enough health to show his face and face the music. Idate was kind of sad; he was going to miss these peaceful afternoons in the shop with Miwa-chan.

Miwa-chan who was apparently sublimating her previously romantic feelings into religious fervour. He would better have some hand in forming the Narutoism, as the cult was for now tentatively called, if only to make sure it didn't require anyone to be celibate. Triumphing over a thirteen years old boy in a battle for a fair maiden's heart only on a technicality was kind of sad, but if he lost because Miwa-chan decided to become a nun for the said boy he was going to murder somebody.

**043. Square**

Naruto had sadly concluded that he was going to get blamed for everything even though everything he had done had made perfect sense. Shikamaru had once said that two wrongs _did_ make right; it maybe wasn't morally sound, but it made mathematical sense. Along the same vein Naruto had decided that two rights made wrong, like this cult ballyhoo people were getting into proved. There was no justice in the world!

This was only proved further when there was a light knock on the door late in the night of his twenty eighth day in the peaceful – hah, what a joke! – town of Makimura. Everybody was already sleeping and Naruto was the one to wake up first and trot to the door barefooted. He rubbed his eyes sleepily as he opened it.

Yakushi Kabuto was standing on the porch, smiling like a paper doll.

"Good night, Naruto-sama. I'm sorry to bother you this late, but I thought it wise to not bring my luggage through the town in broad daylight," he greeted Naruto softly, like nothing ever happened at all. The moon was half circle above them and his hair shone in its light silver and white like a ghost. For a few precious seconds Naruto just stood still as his mind tried to process what his eyes, ears and nose were telling him. It looked like Kabuto, it had the soft tones of his voice and his smell, a tang of something sharp and chemical and a hint of blood underneath, but Kabuto was...

Naruto's hands were forming Rasengan before his conscious mind caught up with them, but when it did, it _approved_. The light of it lit the porch and Naruto could hear several curses inside the house, knew that his chakra, tinged with Kyuubi's redandhateandpain, had awakened the whole house now. Good.

"Who you came for now?" he shouted and struck. Kabuto leapt back with eerie grace, like quicksilver or a wisp of mist, and what was meant to hit his chest squarely hit the dirt of the yard instead, making a new crater to go along with the previous ones. Dust darkened the glow of the town's lights.

"I came for you, Naruto-sama. I am the kind of person who keeps his promises, after all, and I made one for you," Kabuto said, his voice not alarmed in the least. It was pleasant if anything, like he was chatting of weather. "Please do not try to kill me yet. I haven't been of any use to you at all. Let me talk first, you can always kill me later."

That stopped Naruto where he stood for several reasons. The chakra he had gathered for another Rasengan wavered like a candle's light in wind and died, leaving their faces in shadows again. Something burned and clawed inside him, screamed how he had taken Sasuke-teme and _left_ and Hokage-jiji was _dead_ and itwashisfaultkillhim, the red haze of Kyuubi falling over his eyes, but he still wasn't striking. Time stretched like bubblegum, there was still time even though everyone inside the house was running already...

_You can always kill me later?_ Oh, not Kabuto too! What was wrong with people that they said such things? (Besides going to Orochimaru, of course. That was always a bad idea.)

"Yakushi Kabuto, missing-nin of Konoha." Tsubaki-chan's voice was slick like the oil used to polish swords and her blade made a thin noise as she slid it from its sheath. Naruto knew even without turning that Taiki was there too and he was dangerous, and Konatsu and Kaede too. It was like weight strapped to his back, their killing intent. He raised his hand.

"Wait!"

It was hard to think over the roaring of Kyuubi in his ears, but he needed to keep his head now. Maybe there was something to this whole cult leader thing after all because everyone waited just because he told them so, even though he was sure that Taiki was plain mortified by the whole thing and Tsubaki-chan was amused. Kabuto smiled to him happily and that happiness wasn't like proper happiness at all. Nauto didn't have the vocabulary to describe it, but it kind of made him hurt. But still...

"You took Sasuke!" he accused. Kabuto had helped at it in any case. Enabled the whole thing.

"I have brought him back to you," Kabuto stated and gestured with his hand towards the middle of the yard. There was the shape of a barrel, like one shadow amongst many. Something was draped around it, like charms in a temple. "He didn't come peacefully."

Naruto laughed. It was a stupid thing to do and everything was not okay at all, but the thought of Sasuke's indignant face when he was stuffed into the barrel against his wishes, it just made something inside Naruto explode in bubbly giggles. And maybe things would be alright in the end after all. Things needed to be fair and square. Kabuto had helped to take Sasuke away, but he had brought Sasuke back. Hokage-jiji was dead now, but it had been Orochimaru who had killed him.

"Will you help me kill Orochimaru?" he asked. Kabuto had been his friend. He had hurt Naruto, true, but if he started holding hat against people, well. He wanted Kabuto back. Fair and square.

"Let's talk."

**044. Circle**

There was a barrel in the middle of the living room and six ninja gathered around a table. The tea was hot and just bitter enough for Kabuto. Ono Tsubaki, one-time lover of the traitor Mizuki if Kabuto remembered right, was giving him glares that could almost set things to fire without the help of jutsu, but she also kept looking at the barrel. Doihara Taiki looked like he had a clue what this was about, the two Kiri children didn't. But Kabuto only had eyes for one person.

"Is this one of those "you didn't ask" things?" Naruto-sama asked him.

"Yes," Kabuto answered unashamed and sipped his tea. It wasn't drugged, but he didn't hold that against Ono and Doihara; his arrival was certain to be a shock. He was sure they were usually savvier.

"What you meant, I can kill you later? You don't want to die, do you? Why you say such things?" Naruto-sama asked and Kabuto blinked, off his guard. He had expected to be asked why, but not this why. Why he would die so easily? Why not?

"What is the point of living if I'm no-one? If you don't want me, who I am?" he returned the questions with his own. His pulse had elevated without his permission; normally the control his medical techniques allowed him over his body was greater, but now he felt it slipping gently away under the suspicious, angry blue eyes. He couldn't even remember when he had been afraid of death, but this was a sensation he could remember, if only vaguely. He had been a child, in Nono's care, and he had been promised candy if he did well at test. He had passed, but not with the best marks, not even the third best.

Now things had come to a full circle and he was waiting with baited breath again, but this time the stakes were much higher than a piece of candy. Was fourth best good enough for Naruto-sama? He would die if necessary, but he didn't want to be disowned.

"You are Kabuto. You are good at keeping secrets and too literal and kind of an idiot and a total jerk, but don't worry, it's not like I'm not used to that." Approval, acknowledgement, invitation. Naruto-sama stood up and walked to the barrel where his teammate slumbered. His face flickered like a mirage; some concealed their feelings with a face like porcelain mask, but Naruto showed too much to interpret, flooding senses instead of denying them. A little sadness, a lot of determination and a mess of contradictions.

"Okay, so we wake Sasuke up tomorrow and write to Tsunade-baachan we have got him and you and you are going to tell everything you know about Orochimaru. But first tell me what the hell messed you up like that. It isn't _that hard_ to answer, right?" Naruto-sama demanded and turned around, his eyes charged like lightning, like the Chidori his teammate had displayed.

"Naruto-kun, who can trust the colour of a chameleon? This isn't sensible, we must detain him," Ono chided Naruto-sama gently, but he twitched, almost jumped. The silence of the three Kiri ninja could have been cut with a kunai, the silence of the night oppressing and the silence of the barrel even more so. Kabuto didn't understand much of feelings, but he had learned to recognize them and that barrel was filled with what-ifs and maybes.

"The ninja lizard. Your colours," Naruto-sama muttered and his hand hovered over Kabuto's. Kabuto wanted Naruto-sama to touch him, but he couldn't ask for it; it wasn't his place.

The circle made him, the circle broke him and it could make him anew and it would never stop turning. He owed Naruto-sama an answer.

"You can bind me and seal my chakra if you wish. Shimura Danzo is the one who did this to me." He answered to both of them. Ono paled and her hands became fists, but Naruto-sama's face only displayed clear, unconflicted anger. The hand touched his.

**045. Moon**

_Where the energy flow begins is in the body of the material world. It moves freely through the body, if allowed, and expresses itself at times beyond the five senses. The "human" is a moon that reflects the sun that is the divinity, a clear mirror, yet incomplete, reversed, flawed. When one learns to take the sensations of the flesh to the sixth sense one can experience Divine Ecstasy._

Sai walked down the street as the sun only begun to rise over the horizon. It was easy to read a book while walking so early when other senses didn't need to be extended to avoid colliding with other people. He wasn't quite certain about the book he had chosen to learn how to act like a human being. On one hand, he often felt like a mirror – or a moon if one wished to use grand, wistful metaphors – merely reflecting what he saw others experience. On the other hand he had never thought that achieving orgasm was so necessary to mental balance.

If spiritual balance and soul were considered equivalent to mental balance, that was. It appeared to be a somewhat different thing, but the book lacked exact descriptions.

Yet to become a moon, a mirror, was a useful thing for an infiltrator and while he hadn't participated in the techniques described due to his young age and undeveloped body he tried to embrace the ideal. To reflect what his targets were, what they wanted to see in others rather than what he really was.

The shape of the moon was best recognized not in its whole self and not even in half, but as a crescent, a sliver. Surely his incomplete self could be recognized as true human as well if he only integrated the idea sufficiently.

All his good intentions came to naught. When he arrived to the door of the safe house a loud crash could be heard from the inside. Fearing Uzumaki was under assault he broke in to meet a chaotic scene. The missing-nin Uchiha Sasuke was lying on the floor, snarling at the jinchuuriki who was kneeling on his chest and pinning his arms to the floor. A table broken in half had been kicked around as had a barrel and behind it stood a long-nosed man in blue garb, obviously armed. Jounin Ono sat by a wall with her hand on her sword's handle, her eyes sharp and hard as they turned towards Sai. And above this whole scene stood Yakushi Kabuto, a traitor to the Root and Danzo-sama, servant of Orochimaru.

The Uchiha was under control and the smaller threat anyway so Sai attacked Yakushi on the spot.

* * *

AN: I have received a review that asks for a list of my OCs because they are getting numerous enough to be confusing. Because one reader out of ten reviews if the author gets really lucky, I'm assuming that other people have the same problem but haven't bothered to ask.

So, in no particular order:

**Matsuzaki Arikko**, owner of Matsuzaki's Better Delicacies and Naruto's hapless employer. Has a lazy kind of crush on **Sakuya**, his neighbour and a widow of his old friend.  
**Mizushima Konatsu** and **Kaede**, technically speaking not missing-nin since they ran before graduating. They still got a hunter-nin sent after them.  
**Miwa**, ex-maiko and ex-prostitute, currently Naruto's secretary, aide, right hand and left kidney, whatever Naruto needs her to be.  
**Doihara Taiki**, the eponymous hunter-nin who was hit by Naruto-induced post-battle epiphany. A jounin and the best fighter of the lot, but no match to Gamaken.  
**Yamamoto Takumo**, a very stressed police chief, husband of **Reiko** and father of **Ruri**.  
**Yuriko**, **Aiko**, **Mariko**, **Riku**, ex-prostitutes and inn girls.  
**Machika**, an ex-prostitute and a fire brigade girl.  
**Risa, Hiro** and **Atsushimaru**, children.

Also, would any of my readers be interested in becoming my beta? I'm not a native speaker and I have been told my grammar isn't only lacking in Japanese.


	10. Chapter 10

**Where Naruto Realizes He Has to Take Care of Everything (Gods Forbid People Saw to Their Own Problems!)**

* * *

**046. Star**

Uchiha Sasuke had been a pretty big deal ever since the Uchiha Massacre. The Last Uchiha, the star pupil at the Academy everybody expected big things from, the star pupil of Hatake Kakashi – or so it had seemed at first. But while he couldn't complain about the time the man put to teaching him, Naruto just kept catching up with him, inch by painstaking inch. And then there had been Gaara…

The last time Sasuke had been so afraid had been that night, that terrible night when the brother he had always loved and admired stood above his parents' still warm bodies, his swords red and wet, dripping on the floor boards like a raincloud. His mother had been quiet, but she sang in his memories: _It's raining; it's pouring. The old man is snoring._

He could never forgive Gaara for making him feel that helpless again. Sometimes, in his dreams, there was no difference between the red moon and the red sand, and he could hear his mother singing, but she was so far away.

_He went to bed and bumped his head and couldn't get up in the morning._

Such morbid songs for the once-strong Uchiha, taken down by their own. The truth was that being a star pupil in the Academy just meant that Sasuke was a big fish in a little pond and being dropped into the bigger pond that was the whole of Konohagakure no Sato was a shock to his system he never quite recovered from. There had to be some fault in Konoha for making him weak, for he couldn't stand the thought that there might be a fault in him. He had sworn to leave that stumbling self behind him with the rest of Konoha, moved his team picture from one shelf to another, the one where he kept the pictures of his dead – and in a twisted sort of way the decision to kill his heart had worked. He had been ready to pay the price.

To say that he was less than pleased when he realised his former teammate had managed to infect one of his new teachers with the friendship nonsense would be an understatement. He was, in fact, livid beyond measure; and that he was stuffed into a barrel again, this time against his will, did nothing to help. Inside he was more asleep than awake, only distantly aware that the barrel was moving. The grogginess persisted when the lid was finally pried open and strong arms dragged him out and pulled him into a basket hold. The sudden light stung, and everything was blurry in his watering eyes. His ears were ringing. He was helpless.

Or was the hold… a hug? And he could swear he saw a hint of those birth marks under the floppy, obnoxiously yellow hair…

"Sasuke! You are back!"

"Naruto! I will kill you!"

Sasuke struggled against his captor's hold and glared at Yakushi – that traitor! Yakushi looked distinctly pleased with himself, but then, he always did. That smug snake.

"I'm not going to let you hold me back," he snarled at Naruto and twisted to get one hand free, but the orange-clad idiot's arms were like bands of steel. "Konoha only made me weak, like you. Gods, it's contagious!" Somebody laughed in the background and that made the noise in his head louder, shriller. His curse mark was burning like a brand freshly plucked from a fire.

"Now you're just being stupid. Orochimaru became strong in Konoha. Kabuto became strong in Konoha. Your brother became strong in Konoha! Just stop being stupid and come back home, it's not like you're really a missing-nin or anything," Naruto insisted. Sasuke latched onto that last part, a clear sign that Naruto didn't know what he was talking about. And even though Itachi and Orochimaru were both Konoha-born and Konoha-trained, it was easy to ignore in the light of that one glaring falsehood.

"What you mean, I'm not really a missing-nin? I tried to kill you, remember? By what Kakashi-sensei said, that would make me lower than trash," he reminded his former teammate, finally managing to work his arm into a position he could use to break the basket hold. And of course that dumb Naruto had to destroy all his effort by thrusting him arms' length away, making the manoeuvre unnecessary. Didn't he even know how to keep someone captive?

"Stop being so hard on yourself! Self-esteem is for everyone, you know? And I'm totally over that almost-killing thing so don't worry," Naruto said breezily.

"What do you mean, over it? You can't just be over it!" That had been one of Sasuke's worst moments, the moment when he almost took the life of someone who was, sort of, his friend. And he hadn't even managed to do it in the end, making the whole thing a double failure, and if he wasn't over it, Naruto wasn't allowed to either, dammit! "And there is nothing wrong with my self-esteem."

"You just called yourself trash," Naruto pointed out pleasantly. Behind his back an unknown girl covered her mouth with her hand, but not quickly enough to hide a smile. A boy by her side bit the ball of his thumb and Sasuke's already frayed temper snapped. He threw the annoyance against the table, which broke with a satisfying crash; but quickly as a snake, much quicker than he used to be, Naruto leaped back and pushed him flat on his back.

"I didn't say it! Kakashi said it!" he shouted at the top of his lungs while Naruto just looked infuriatingly vague and worried.

"Uh, yes you did. And Kakashi-sensei isn't even here. Did you hit your head when Kabuto stashed you in there?" Naruto asked; and now the unknown boy was hanging from the girl's shoulder, his whole upper body shaking with silent laughter. Sasuke snarled wordlessly.

This was when a boy wearing Konoha's hitai-ite crashed the scene and tried to kill Yakushi on the spot.

**047. Heart**

When Naruto pressed a snapping, snarling Sasuke to the floor he thought that this was the best day ever. He had gotten two of his best friends back in one fell stroke and maybe Sasuke-teme wasn't yet fully onboard with the idea, but Naruto was sure he could change Sasuke's mind. He was certain that his and Sakura-chan's worst failing the first go round had been that they hadn't gotten enough words in edgewise quickly enough. This was the best day _ever_ and he was a bit afraid his heart would explode like a tag, just BLAM and pieces of Naruto would be all over the place from sheer happiness.

Then a strange Konoha shinobi crashed his party and attacked Kabuto. For a second Naruto was torn as he sat atop Sasuke, not daring to stand for fear that the jerk would just run away _again_, afraid that Kabuto was about to get hurt. Tsubaki-chan stood like she had been turned to stone, Taiki and Konatsu-chan and Kaede all shifted, touched the handle of a sword or a kunai or pushed their fingers together, ready to flash through the handsigns of this or the other jutsu, but no one _did anything_.

No one except Kabuto, who moved so quickly Naruto only saw a blur and the simple fire jutsu the stranger had used hit the wall instead.

"Somebody put the fire out!" he shouted and Konatsu-chan turned around and spat the water bullet with the ease of one who has used the jutsu again and again and again over the course of the last few days. The floor flooded instantly; Naruto was spared from most of it thanks to his perch on top of Sasuke, but said duck-butt was starting to resemble a wet puppy instead, in the space of a few heartbeats.

"Let me up!" Sasuke commanded him and pushed at his chest. It wasn't hard enough to move him, but maybe making Sasuke lie in what amounted to a puddle was a bit mean? _Nah_.

"What should I do with him, Naruto-sama?" Kabuto asked as he dodged yet another strike. The words made the shinobi to look at Naruto sharply before jumping towards him, but now Kabuto struck; again there was a blur, but now it ended with a meaty thump and a pained groan, then splash when the pale boy hit the floor, but stood up immediately.

"Please, shinobi-san, this isn't what it looks like. Yakushi Kabuto has defected from Orochimaru and offered us the Uchiha and information," Tsubaki-chan spoke quickly and took a half-step closer to the boy, making a placating-looking gesture with her hands. The boy only frowned as he let his eyes move from Tsubaki-chan to Kabuto, then to Naruto and Sasuke and eventually to the rest. No one made a move to attack him, only staring in a way that made Naruto grimace a bit from sympathy. That had to be uncomfortable.

"Ono Tsubaki, suspected of working for Orochimaru," he said flatly and pulled a sketchbook from his bag, along with a brush dripping with ink. Just a few months ago Naruto would have thought that totally harmless, but these months with Jiraiya had taught him what seals could be good for.

"Just don't kill him! Or terribly maim him!" he shouted to Kabuto, adding that last bit because he had a feeling that Kabuto might need it. Then everything happened quickly.

Everybody stading leaped aside, giving the fight on the way a lot of room, now pulling their blades as well, but still not attacking...

and Sasuke struck him quickly as a snake, sending him crashing on the floor...

and something rose from the sketchbook, something black that he couldn't really see from the corner of his eye because he was looking at Sasuke-teme and climbing back to his feet...

Kaede was closest to Sasuke now and he attacked with taijutsu. Sasuke blocked easily, but then Naruto was already coming at him. The curse markings climbed up Sasuke's neck and cheek like some disgusting skin disease. Sasuke struck towards his sternum in a way Naruto was sure was going to broke something and hurt like hell even with Kyuubi's help. Ribs breaking and puncturing the heart or lungs were only cool when you were the one doing it and so he jumped and blocked. The pain shot up his arm, numbness at its heels, but he didn't think anything had broken. He then threw a punch that Sasuke didn't even deign to block, muttering "sloppy" under his breath as he dodged Kaede as well, aiming a kick towards the boy.

The kick never connected. Kabuto was there so quickly Naruto nearly jumped out of his skin. Kabuto's hand glowed with sickly green light and one tap, just one tap lighter even than the Hyuuga tenketsu hits, was enough. Sasuke hit the floor like a ragdoll and Naruto noticed that Kabuto was carrying the stranger over his shoulder with ease. Now that he could really look he noticed that the boy looked a lot like Sasuke. Kaede was leaning against the wall and clutching his chest over his heart, looking like he wanted to accuse Kabuto of almost causing him a heart attack. A bad day for heart health all around.

"The situation is under control, Naruto-sama. I believe we should restrain at least one of them before they wake up to avoid a repetition of this," he suggested and set the stranger down. And so they did. Naruto felt kind of crummy tying up Sasuke, but since he was the one who had run away before, well, precedent and all.

The first thing the Sasuke-lookalike said when he woke up was: "Were you attempting to engage in a tantric sex ritual with Uchiha earlier?" In their first show of united purpose in four months Naruto and Sasuke both tried to strangle him. Sasuke's attempt was really good, Naruto thought as Taiki pulled them away, considering that his hands had been tied behind him, not in front.

Even Lee didn't have that sort of legwork.

**048. Diamond**

Diamonds were the hardest known material in the world; only a diamond could scratch another diamond. Yet diamonds were born from carbon, soft and easily burned coal, useful in its own way, yet much inferior. Diamonds were born when carbon was placed under great pressure and heat in the heart of the earth, burned to last and shine. Only under the harshest conditions could shinobi reach their true potential, like coal. Sai was among the lucky few.

Sai saw the green glow of a scalpel made of chakra and his world went dark. He knew enough of chakra scalpels that he was very surprised when he realized he had woken up.

Someone had carried the tatami mats outside and dried the wooden floor the best they could, but the house still appeared a bit shabby and charred around the edges. He was even more surprised to realize that he was unrestrained – and that the Uchiha who was glaring at him near a wooden crate that had replaced the broken table had his hands tied. Yet Kabuto was free and he stood next to Uzumaki, though Ono stood behind him and had her hand on the handle of her sword. Sai was suffering from conflicting signals, which was never good when one was carrying a small armory's worth of knives.

"Were you attempting to engage in a tantric sex ritual with Uchiha earlier?" he asked Uzumaki. Uzumaki's face turned bright red and he jumped at Sai with his fingers spread out like claws. An unknown long-nosed man in blue clothes caught Uzumaki by the back of his jumpsuit, but this didn't prevent the Uchiha from delivering a kick to his chest and attempting to strangle Sai with his legs. It wasn't a bad attempt, really, but a kick to the larynx would have been a much more effective way to end his life. Obviously Orochimaru's training had been sub-par so far.

"It seems... you are the one he... spread his legs for," an unknown girl sputtered and now Uchiha turned towards her in the man's grip, his whole body language broadcasting barely restrained aggression that Sai attributed to the detrimental effect of the curse seal. But Uzumaki appeared to forget his burst of irrational rage – caused by Kyuubi, maybe? - and snorted with the girl.

"So I'm Uzumaki Naruto, though I'm called Satou Naruto here so you better use that name too," Uzumaki told him and extended his hand. "These are Tsubaki-chan, she's my back-up here and a really cool and strong jounin; Konatsu-chan and Kaede, they ran away from Kiri when their jerk-ass teachers told them to kill each other to graduate. They are a sister and a brother, you know. He's Taiki, he came after them, but we made him see the light so he stayed as well, and Kabuto used to be my friend and he came back to join my cult that _I didn't ask for and didn't try to found_. And Sasuke's still being stupid about things so he gets to be tied up." Uzumaki pointed at each and every person as he introduced them and thrust his hand out again. Sai stared at it and lifted his gaze to Uzumaki's face.

"You are supposed to take it," Uzumaki said with strangely lilting rhythm. Sai did as he was told and Uzumaki shook their entwined hands up and down a few times.

"Now you are supposed to tell me your name," the jinchuuriki continued his instructions.

"My name is Sai. Are these manners common amongst people or only those who belong in cults?" he asked since Uzumaki seemed open to explaining the social convention he was following. It was very helpful of him, really.

"Are we sure this cult is a good idea on top of everything else?" Ono asked, displaying exasperation. She was leaning against the wall with one hand now that Yakushi was taking a few steps to the side, away from Uzumaki yet towards Sai at the same time, and he found himself re-evaluating is initial assumptions concerning her loyalties. If she displayed aggression towards Orochimaru's underlings and protectiveness towards Uzumaki, did she remain faithful to Konoha? Or the as-of-yet unnamed cult? Or rather, as she didn't seem to have a high opinion of said cult, to Uzumaki personally? He had been ordered to eliminate Ono if she turned out to be a threat, but so far the evidence was self-conflicting. He needed more information to reach a conclusion.

And Yakushi Kabuto was to be killed. He knew far too much to be allowed to live; but Sai was keenly aware after their brief fight, which he had only survived on Uzumaki's orders, that he wasn't a match in fair fight to the former Oto nin. But there was more than one way to defeat an enemy.

"What is this cult? May I join it too?" he asked. He had read an article about cult psychology and he was fairly certain that if he could get these people's trust as one of their own they would never expect betrayal of him.

He was ready to go along with Uzumaki's manipulation for now, he had no problems being isolated from the civilian society. Besides, one of the major threshold that needed to be crossed when initiating new members into a cult involved physical hardship. This could include sleep deprivation, chronic hunger, long hours of manual labor or other similar things; Sai figured that getting beaten in a fight should suffice. He was obviously prime cult material.

"Ah, maybe you will. I have seen eyes like yours before, Sai," Yakushi drawled. Sai looked into the man's dark eyes. Then he couldn't look away. He had once read that eyes were like water's cool surface underground, that it was romantic foolishness to try and seek the difference between an enemy and a lover within those depths. He knew that the expressions that were attributed to eyes were in fact formed by the muscles around the eyes and eyebrows. He had read this.

"I have seen eyes like yours before, Sai; too often in the mirror. Did you have a name before Danzo sent you here, or did you merely have a number? Who had to die so you had no-one to define yourself by, nothing left but memories, a little less bitter every year?" Kabuto's eyes were dark, but they seemed to hold a gravity seal that narrowed Sai's perception to those eyes and nothing else.

"Don't..." he started, but realized he had no idea what he was pleading Yakushi not to do. He was certain that if Root's files of Uzumaki Naruto were even marginally true, the jinchuuriki wouldn't allow him to be tortured.

"May I be alone with him for a little while, Naruto-sama? We could share our experiences and life lessons under Danzo," Yakushi asked. Sai could see nothing but his eyes. Sai had been carefully conditioned to not feel fear, but now he wondered if the small niggling at the back of his mind meant that he was scared. Only a diamond could scratch another diamond, but here, Sai thought, might be a diamond harder than he was.

**049. Club**

Seeing Sasuke again after all these months was strange and Naruto wasn't quite sure what to think or feel. Anger, yes, there was some of that. Actually, there was a whole a lot of it – what had that idiot been _thinking_, leaving him and Sakura-chan behind and running off to the snake freak, making Sakura-chan cry? Okay, he could see that Sasuke had wanted to be strong to beat Itachi and all, but true strength didn't come from a curse seal that twisted your body until creepy missing-nin could possess you, and bye-bye to your vengeance then.

Real strength was knowing that your friends gave you a reason to keep fighting and they were going to fight for you to help you reach your goals, even if the goal was a homicidal maniac missing-nin. Even if Sasuke was complete idiot he should have gotten this at least.

So yeah, Naruto was angry. Sakura-chan had _cried_!

But he was also giddy with relief. Sasuke was still _Sasuke_, still the one in charge of his own body, not just Orochimaru's new fashionable body. Sasuke was paler now, like he hadn't seen the sun for a good long time, his hair was a little longer like he hadn't bothered to cut it, his sleeves were a little too short like he hadn't bothered to get bigger clothes and Naruto was kind of surprised that his quest for vengeance hadn't made him forgot to bathe. Okay, maybe that was a teeny, tiny overstatement, but Sasuke should have taken better care of himself. Still, he was Sasuke and no-one else.

"Can I trust you to not run or do I have to keep you tied up?" he asked his errant teammate. He was pretty sure that Taiki and Kabuto could catch Sasuke before he left Makimura's borders anyway, but that didn't mean he wanted to bother them like that. He didn't want Sasuke to run.

And he had to worry about Kabuto and Danzo and Sai and Orochimaru too. At least becoming Hokage should be a cake walk after this kerfuffle. Was he the only person with a whole brain in the whole continent that he had to take care of everything?

"I can't become strong enough to beat Itachi in Konoha," Sasuke complained in a dark tone, and struggled against his ropes. Naruto was pretty sure that Sasuke knew it was futile too and he was just being ornery like that.

So he had an idiot, and a clue club to hit the idiot over the head with. He was good at hitting things at least.

"Look, you idiot, Itachi became strong enough to kill your clan in Konoha! Orochimaru became strong in Konoha and so did Kabuto – okay, bad example since I'm gonna give that Danzo bastard his just desserts..." And how! Of course Naruto had known that the world was full of evil people and they weren't always going to be on the other side, but Danzo had still costed him something, some belief in his fellow humans. He had cost Kabuto and apparently Sai as well a lot more and he was going to collect that money's worth. Just wait, Danzo, the great Uzumaki Naruto was on to you!

"I've been in Konoha this whole time! Do you think I'm weak?" he shouted. Okay, so he hadn't been _in_ Konoha, technically speaking, but he had been a Konoha nin the whole time so it still counted.

"I'm not an idiot, you moron," Sasuke snapped at him and his Sharingan swirled in a mess of red and black that was hard to track. "You've been cheating this whole time. I know about Kyuubi..." Just a month ago this would have made Naruto shout in anger, but now he just snorted and shook his head. He knew he was better than that now.

"Hey, Avenger-chan, which one of us _agreed_ to be turned into a monster? And if you think Kyuubi helped any, have you seen my Academy grades?" he asked and took a deep breath. He kind of wanted to get mad, but he knew it wouldn't help any. "Look, I'm going to go back to Konoha to ambush Danzo before he can figure out Kabuto's with us again and Sai's gonna be too, and after that we'll go after Orochimaru before he figures it out. If you can live through that you are going to be one kick-ass shinobi and I bet they have a lot of cool jutsu scrolls too. And if Kabuto taught you in Oto he can teach you in Konoha too," he bribed Sasuke. There was no way he was going to let Sasuke-teme die, but he didn't have to say that, now did he. It was pretty obvious as far as bribery went, but hey, the hammer hadn't worked so why not try the club? And the Sharingan swirled slower now. Clue club for the win!

**050. Spade**

Tsubaki had interviewed Yakushi Kabuto carefully and thanks to Naruto's order to be honest she believed she had indeed received truthful answers – they were certainly disturbing enough. If they were in fact concealing something more disturbing, she didn't believe the man should be able to even function anymore.

"My professional opinion," she said. Time to call a spade a spade. "You are nuttier than a squirrel in a bag of crackers."

"I don't think I have ever heard _that_ before," Kabuto said amusedly. "Usually people just scream "you are insane" or "you are crazy." Never for very long, though." His perfectly non-confrontational, matter of fact tone made Tsubaki grit her teeth.

They were kneeling on the opposite sides of the table in the safe house, a pot of tea and two cups between them. The house was still a bit bare, but the new inhabitants had left their marks: Naruto in form of potted plants; Tsubaki in the form of new curtains, yellow in colour and more importantly mesh-enforced (it had been a bit of pain to explain to the weaver that yes, she wanted this roll of wire mesh sewed between two layers of fabric, but the security they offered had made the ordeal worth it); Konatsu had left fluffy blue slippers by the door, and she could see through the window to the garden where Miwa was hanging the laundry to dry. Now Sai had decided to add some charring to the walls and they needed to paper over it, but that was neither here nor there. It was a lively place and pale, white-haired Kabuto looked even more ghost-like, lifeless, against this tapestry.

At least he wasn't trying to look lively himself. Tsubaki could still remember how he used to smile. Maybe, just maybe this was an indicator that the whole mess wasn't about to blow up on their faces.

It wasn't that he didn't have faith in Naruto-kun's ability to turn around a person's world view and perceptions of reality; he practically challenged reality on a weekly basis (or maybe these had just been exceptionally busy weeks) and shouted from the roof tops that reality could try to crush him all it wanted, he wasn't going to be the one to walk away broken. He had decided to rid the town where he was supposed to lie low from of yakuza because it was the right thing to do and gotten Tsubaki to go along with the mad plan – it had been so easy she was a bit embarrassed. He had decided that prostitution wasn't a complex social problem and a socio-economical issue that would just have to be tolerated, it was something easily fixable and people just liked to make things more difficult than they were. Two Kiri missing-nin asking for shelter? Good, let's just convert the hunter-nin as well. Tsubaki actually trusted Taiki quite a bit at this point; maybe she needed to get her head checked, but she did.

She could grudgingly swallow the idea of even Sasuke's kind-of-under-duress reformation sometime in the future, but Kabuto? Granted, she didn't know him very well; he had been there on the peripherals of her awareness, the Eternal Genin who just couldn't get a promotion, right until he turned out to be jounin-level and working for a man who made it to the Leaf's list of top five most dangerous traitors ever, order of entry undecided. And those hopefully-honest answers had decided her opinion: Kabuto was brilliant, but it was the brilliance of a broken crystal. The prisms made rainbows in the sun, but they were still undeniably broken and only a fool would grab one without thick gloves.

"I don't trust you. I'm keeping an eye on you and if you so much as twitch in a suspicious way before we can get you to the Hokage's office – or _after_ – your head will part company from the rest of you." Kabuto tilted his head with a move like a snake's, his eyes raking up and down her body, not salacious, but assessing. To tell the truth, she wasn't entirely sure she could carry out that threat, but she was jounin as well and with Taiki by her side they should manage for sure.

"Letting me know you don't trust me wasn't a very good move, you know. In the _completely hypothetical_ possibility that I'm playing you." Kabuto's voice was still pleasantly nondescript like the topic of their conversation was weather or something else equally inane, but there was the most minuscule twitch at the left corner of his mouth.

…It was official now. The bastard was enjoying this.

"It isn't as though I could make you believe in my sudden faith in your sudden loyalty so let me make my point in peace, okay?" Tsubaki glared at the silver-haired man and sighed, letting her shoulders slump and picking up a brown paper bag from the floor. It was an uncomfortable situation, true, but it was one she would just have to deal with for now.

"Here, take these. It's a tradition now, and let's call a spade a spade: you are here and I can't be rid of you so welcome to the group." She thrust the paper bag to Kabuto's arms and watched him check it carefully for concealed seals before opening it carefully. The face he made when he saw what was inside was most likely the first uncalculated expression she had gotten out of him.

"Pumpkin bread?" he asked and raised one sardonic eyebrow, but it couldn't quite cover the startled curve of his eyes.

"Konatsu got a bit carried away. But you aren't getting the bombs, don't even bother asking." She didn't trust him, but she was willing to give Naruto his one chance to bring the man around. One chance to catch an even bigger monster, and who knew? Maybe even two.

* * *

AN: And I have a beta reader! Many, many thanks to wonderful **SpiegelofNowhere** for her quick work! ^_^ My already existing chapters shall be betaed as well; I have already put up betaed chapter one.

Thanks to the other people who offered to help me as well. I appreciate your generosity.


	11. Chapter 11

**Elementary, My Dear Naruto**

* * *

**051. Water**

Water was eternal, Taiki's first teacher had once told him, back in the Academy. Boil it, it will rain back to earth sooner or later, freeze it and it will melt eventually, pour in on the ground and the plants will bring it back up to the air. To be a water ninja was to be mutable, adaptable, forever changing. He had forgotten this for a long time, as his whole village had. Maybe Kiri would be a better place if more people had listened to Yamadera-sensei. That he was being given a crash course in adaptability by a fire shinobi was irony that didn't escape him.

"You are just going to go to your Hokage with them in tow? Without even writing to her first?" he asked with some difficulty. His gaze moved from Sai, who was staring at Kabuto in a manner that was both intrigued and vaguely horrified, to Kabuto, who was eating pumpkin bread and smiling like nothing was wrong in the world, to Sasuke, who was glaring at Naruto, but untied and not trying to escape.

"Of course. If I gave her advanced warning that Danzo-bastard would get warned as well. Don't worry, Tsunade-baachan is gonna do the right thing; she ran away from Konoha and gambled and drank all over the continent because she hated Konoha getting people killed, how you think she's going to take the news about Danzo?" Naruto asked back and munched on his ramen happily.

"You call her baachan behind her back?" Konatsu asked with sardonic lilt in her voice, raising one eyebrow. "Are you sure she will want to help you?"

"I call her baachan to her face. Don't you know how old she is?" Naruto asked. All three former Kiri-nin choked in their own spit as they imagined what would happen in Kiri if anyone, absolutely anyone, was to call the Mizukage names. If Naruto really could get away with that – and he was the most honest person Taiki had ever met – just maybe the mad idea of ambushing the Hokage with this issue would work out.

Tsubaki's hand had frozen in midair, her chopsticks holding a few leeks like they were a shield between her and the crazy world. She was muttering under her breath and Taiki caught the words "technically true, kind of" and "what happened to the world I used to live in anyway" – he echoed the sentiment fully.

"Are you going to return here?" Miwa asked, wringing her hem in hands. She was sitting next to Naruto as usual, with an abandoned pad and a pencil on the crate table in front of her. Her eyes were almost feverish when she looked at the boy under her lashes.

"Sure, I have _responsibilities_ here and besides, Ero-sensei would have an apoplexy if he came here and I was missing," Naruto promised happily. Miwa brightened instantly, but Taiki remembered a certain gigantic sword-wielding toad, what that had to mean and opened his mouth again even though he wasn't really surprised anymore.

"You call Jiraiya of the Sannin Ero-sensei behind his back?" he asked. Irreverence, thy name is Naruto, he thought. Or possibly Uzumaki; he had heard stories about the clan prior to the destruction of Uzushiogakure.

"I call him Ero-sensei to his face. You know he writes the Icha Icha, right?" Naruto cheerfully destroyed yet another piece of reality. Now Taiki couldn't work his jaw open anymore and he wondered if he was slipping into disbelieving catatonia of some sort. The name Jiraiya was on the covers and there were rumours of of it being _that_ Jiraiya, but there were always rumours. He hadn't really believed, had thought it propaganda by Konoha's enemies, because how could the legendary…

"I was his proofreader for a while and let me tell you, those books aren't all that great," Naruto confided in them.

By the time Taiki's brain could process new information again it was decided that Konatsu and Kaede would remain in Makimura and further train the fire brigade, what with being dead and not in need of shelter, assisted by Idate. Miwa had promised to take responsibility for fixing the safehouse up again and writing more mantras; Naruto had tried to escape his cult leader status by pointing out that Shodaime Hokage had fought Kyuubi first, which had only worked to encourage the girl as now he needed to be added to the saints too. And Rikudo Sennin for a good measure because what proper jinchuuriki cult didn't mention him?

Adaptability, adaptability, adaptability… Hell, at this point he wouldn't have been surprised if Naruto's affinity happened to be water.

"Do you know what your elemental affinity is?" he asked, giving the boy an assessing look. In Fire Country fire was the most common_, hence the name_ of the Elemental Country, but there were exceptions – among the most ironic their first Hokage who had been earth _and_ _water_.

"It's wind," Naruto said happily and now Taiki couldn't help but laugh. Of course, contrary to the very end.

**052. Fire**

The town of Makimura didn't really know darkness until the final hours before the dawn. The promenade was still alight with the lights of the restaurants and bars where the tourists partied long past the midnight and the sounds of laughter and music filled the night. Couples walked the streets from one amusement to another or returning to their hotel, but none saw the shadow leaping quickly from one rooftop to another. Yakushi Kabuto had given his minder a slip and walked the night of Makimura.

It was the last night before the group would leave for Konoha and he was checking on Sasuke, as it wouldn't do for the Uchiha to get cold feet and attempt a last minute escape. He was grateful they were leaving, to tell the truth. In Makimura Naruto-sama was in so high demand, between the starry-eyes assistant and her constant demands he approve some of her writings, the head inn girls and the casino boat manager, the nervous owner of the delicacy shop which had first offered Naruto-sama cover, the fire brigade leadership, said leadership's obsession with taking over the kitchen and making explosives hidden in fruits that the clone jutsu was rather necessary. Add to that keeping both Sasuke and Sai under control, guarded by vigilant Tsubaki and Taiki, and he barely had any time for Kabuto. They wouldn't be alone on the road to Konoha, but four people were better than closer to twenty every day.

The safehouse was the old-fashioned type with one big room that served as living area, dining room and bedroom that Naruto-sama shared with his minions. It had obviously been a bit tight fit even before the arrival of Kabuto, his gift and the Root shinobi, but expecting eight people, three of them under suspicion and guard, to sleep in the same room was simply impractical. Naruto-sama had appropriated Matsuzaki's store house for temporary lodgings which had led to arguments about the placing of the three _guests_. Tsubaki had insisted that Kabuto and Sasuke be separated lest they intrigue together, a sensible precaution in itself, but this had left the question of dividing the ninja to guard the three. Tsubaki and Taiki, the most capable of Naruto-sama's underlings, not counting Kabuto, couldn't share a guard, which had irritated the woman terribly.

In the end Tsubaki had decided to watch Kabuto in the safehouse's storage room while Taiki was looking after Sasuke and Sai in the store house. Kabuto was glad a jounin had been given to Naruto-sama as a back-up in a peaceful place like Makimura – Konoha was the only village populous enough to assign jounin so.

He was less happy that fooling the woman with genjutsu had been so easy, though it worked for him now.

Taiki was harder. While Tsubaki had been a solid jounin, good enough at everything, but exceptional at nothing, the man was a former Anbu member, from a subdivision that dealt with some of the most desperate people in the five countries. He didn't bother with genjutsu at all, but employed one of the Yamanaka family jutsu and deepened the man's light sleep to deep unconsciousness.

There was a small cot on the room set aside for Sasuke, in between a few crates. Kabuto was entirely unsurprised to find that the boy was walking a circle around the small floor space like a caged animal. On the other side of a higher wall of crates Sai wasn't asleep either, but Kabuto didn't mind the other listening in. He hadn't come to spare Sasuke's privacy.

"That is not a good idea," he stated, amused when the Uchiha turned sharply around, his face flushing in the dim light that reached the room through a small window near the ceiling. Sasuke had a long way to go before he reached his brother's level if he couldn't even control his own reactions.

Kabuto knew how this conversation would go and he knew it would more than likely deal some psychological damage to Sasuke; there were things the child wasn't ready to confront yet. But as long as he didn't leave without Naruto-sama's permission, Kabuto was fine with that.

"How he is so strong?" Sasuke spat the question out. "I can understand the cult; they are just weak civilians. I can understand the two from Mist; they never even made proper genin. But Taiki? You? What Naruto did to get you!"

"Do you know what the Will of Fire is? Outsiders take it for Konoha mysticism, philosophy – and Konoha lets them think what they will. In truth it is a chakra control technique. Not one I have ever managed; I'm much too fragmented and this technique requires the user is sane." He knew he held Sasuke's full attention. The Council's handprint was clearly visible on the boy. One so easily exploitable should never have been allowed outside the village's walls. But Danzo _liked_ them broken, liked them easily owned – and if Kabuto's only choice had been by _whom_, he had at least made a choice that didn't break him more, that bandaged him. That might even fix him one day.

"Chakra is half mental energy. The Will of Fire is to make your goal, your dream or a mission, into an inseparable part of yourself. To eat it and drink it, to breathe it, to make it your cloak and bed and to make it your blade – and remain a whole person. It is a delicate balance to find, one which requires a great deal of… maybe idealism is a wrong word. The person has to be _wholesome enough_ that their goal doesn't destroy them." There were other focusing techniques that didn't have such harrowing requirements, of course, but Kabuto wasn't there for Sasuke's benefit. He didn't mention them.

"How come killing Itachi isn't wholesome enough? He is a traitor, a kinslayer! He's still a threat to everybody!" Sasuke shouted. Really, such an uncontrolled boy. Even if Sai had been asleep earlier, now he couldn't possibly be.

"You didn't care about the threat he is, you want to stop hurting. There is nothing wrong with that –" Now for the kill, when the throat was bared. "But while you hate him, you love him also. You can't master enough focus with the divide inside you and this is why Naruto-sama has surpassed you. Within him there is only unity." The fault was in Sasuke, not in Konoha. And if the boy broke a little, Kabuto was certain that Naruto-sama could shore him up again. Now it was better to return before Naruto-sama's shift was up.

**053. Earth**

Sandaime Tsuchikage Onoki of Both Scales was an old man and age brought some privileges with it to balance the weakening, aching body and finding you had outlived pretty much everyone, friends, allies and enemies likewise. One of the privileges he had claimed was a small army of scribes who did his paperwork according to his orders. They were all former active duty jounin of his village, retired either due to age or injury, and he knew he could trust them implicitly. These days he only signed the papers with his own hand. This was important.

Deep within the belly of the earth a sure hand had painted an old document white with correction fluid, taking special care with the nooks and crannies left around and inside the kanji of Onoki's name to make certain no difference in the colour of the paper could be detected.

ASSASSINATION OF MORIMOTO TOMOMI, B-CLASS

RECIPIENT: KAKUZU

General Information

Morimoto Tomomi (chuunin, register ID 015652) is to be considered a liability to the security of Iwagakure no Sato due to the high level of emotional dependence of Tsuchikage candidate Deidara (jounin, register ID 015611) on this individual. In broad terms codependency refers to the dependence on the needs of or control of another, often characterized by excessive compliance or control patterns. For further information on the decision-making criteria, consult file: Psychological Assessments, Deidara, ID 015611.

Minimum Requirements

Morimoto Tomomi is to die within three days of the acceptance of this mission by means that implicate a foreign village or a known missing-nin.

Payment

Standard B-class assassination payment, to be rendered after proof of death has been given. Due to the confidential nature of the mission no receipt will be given.

SIGNED

_Sandaime Tsuchikage Onoki_

In the Country of Earth an explosive had been prepared and the fuse was slowly burning shorter and shorter.

**054. Wind**

Naruto had arrived to Tea Country by land, but he left by sea. The Sea Sprite was a quick tourist ship that would take them from Makimura to a Fire Country city near the borderlands that separated them from Water Country's sphere of influence, cutting the curve of the Tea Country Foreland. He had been on ships before, mostly during his short time as Jiraiya's apprentice, but it was still new enough that he ran to the ship's bow to meet the waves and the wind head on. It was a beautiful day and the whole world was blue and white; sky and fluffy clouds above him, the deep blue sea with whitecap waves below him. The wind pushed his back like it had the strength to lift him up and Naruto spread his arms.

"One day I'm going to fly!" he shouted over the wind and the waves to the presence behind him. It was a bit cold and the tourists were all huddled under the deck, leaving only the shinobi hiding among them to enjoy the space and the privacy.

"Be careful, Naruto-sama," Kabuto said and stepped beside him. For once Tsubaki-chan wasn't standing guard and Naruto wondered if his friend maybe used a clone to ditch her. He knew she meant well and was just worried about him and stuff, but it was really difficult to have conversations when she listened to everything; neither Kabuto nor Sasuke nor apparently Sai were very open.

"Not one day," Kabuto said quietly and Naruto spun around to ask if he knew some really cool wind jutsu that made people fly, but Kabuto wasn't looking at him at all, but towards north-east. That was where Konoha was, far, far beyond even the best looking glass' sight. "Not just one day when the plans have reached their completion, but three days from now." Ah, he was talking about Danzo.

"Yeah, don't leave to tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination's a bad habit," he shared Iruka-sensei's pearls of wisdom. "Who knows how many people's lives he's ruining even now?" The thought made him angry and a lick of fire ran over his chakra, but he pushed it back, frowning. Come to think of it, Kyuubi had been really active lately. What was up with the furball?

"Naruto-sama, I would advise you," Kabuto offered with the same kind of voice Naruto had used Ebisu and some other guys use when they talked to Sandaime-jiji and now Tsunade-baachan, he guessed – it was kind of insistent, but also really, he didn't know. Obedient-like.

(Naruto's vocabulary had drastically improved since Jiraiya had taken him as a student, but the words subservient and deferential had yet to make it to his thesaurus. For all his griping Jiraiya actually preferred it that way.)

"Sasuke is precious to you. Your village is precious to you; this is true, right?" he asked, and Naruto was going to answer _of course_, but Kabuto wasn't done yet. "Then don't let Sasuke be there when we accost Danzo. In fact… it might be better if you weren't there either." The smile he gave was sheepish, like the one he had given in the Chuunin Exams when he had admitted failing the exams _how many times_ already. Naruto didn't like it, though back then he had felt intense kinship.

"Why not? And don't smile if you don't mean it, that's as almost as creepy as Sai's," he complained, though Kabuto couldn't quite meet the same creepy levels with his smile alone; at least he knew how his face worked and didn't look like he was contemplating axe murder.

"Am I your precious person, Naruto-sama?" Kabuto asked, the smile disappearing. He had that intense look again, like when he had looked towards Konoha.

"Of course," Naruto said. It wasn't like went around befriending people for the sheer hell of it. He always meant business.

"Would you deceive me knowingly?" Kabuto asked, his eyes doing this funny flutter that Naruto wasn't sure how to read.

"Of course not!" he denied hotly.

"Trust me, please, Naruto-sama. You are better off not meeting Danzo. He can be very garrulous when it suits him." Naruto was briefly distracted by wondering what garrulous meant and then the moment was over, Tsubaki-chan walking towards him with sullen Sasuke in tow. Sasuke was pale like a ghost and his eyes had dark shadows, like he hadn't slept a wink last night.

"Okay, I guess. Sasuke's been really weird anyway," he promised. "And Sai too. What you said to him anyway?" he asked. Sai was in some strange sort of limbo; he hadn't really renounced Danzo, but he wasn't protesting anything either. Actually, he was walking around looking like someone hit him over the head with a really big hammer. He was making frantically notes to his book – with normal ink – and giving Naruto some really funny stares.

"Maybe you should ask him. I'm certain he would welcome a private conversation with you, Naruto-sama," Kabuto said and then Tsubaki-chan and Sasuke were there, Sasuke avoiding his eyes for all he was worth.

The wind was at their back, taking them closer and closer to Konoha.

**055. Spirit**

Many scholars theorized that the Tailed Beasts were personification of negative emotions, borne out of the bad karma of the sinful humankind; that Juubi had been the Negativity Undivided and that The Sage of Six Paths had broken it to its base components. They theorized that Kyuubi was the Personification of Hate.

It was complete rubbish, of course, but what else should be expected from the vicious ants? The only human worth anything had been their father and now Rikudo Sennin was two long millennia dead. It was true that Kurama could sense negative emotions, a fact which hadn't made his current incarceration any more comfortable.

He could actually feel a measure of sympathy towards Uzumaki Naruto. Unlike Uchiha Madara who had simply taken control of him, calling him a weapon, and unlike Senju Hashirama who had sealed him into his wife, unlike Uzumaki Mito who had helped her husband and chained him and unlike Uzumaki Kushina who had made an informed decision and accepted her duty as his prison, Naruto had been a baby whose opinion no-one had been interested in. Kurama had simply been shoved into him, a little baby in Post-Kyuubi Konoha, and Naruto was almost as trapped as Kurama was. But at that point Kurama was fed up with the jinchuuriki and with the Juubi-damned village the Uchiha and Senju had spawned, he'd had half of his chakra violently ripped away from him, his current jinchuuriki was the son of the man who had done it and the Shinigami's seal would see to it that if the little insect died with the seal still whole, he would die as well! What little sympathy Kurama felt for Naruto was by far overshadowed by his hate.

No, he wasn't personification of hate, but he was living up to his reputation nicely. And just when he had thought it impossible, Naruto had come up with an entirely new and fascinating way to fan those flames.

A jinchuuriki cult! A religion that beatified those reviled human cages, a religion that had first claimed Yondaime Hokage as a saint and now claimed Rikudo Sennin as well! His father!

He had always seized any kind of opportunity to gain control over Naruto, provoking his rage and so allowing his influence within his chakra to consume the boy, frustrated beyond measure that while humans were so very capable of rage, this one just wouldn't allow himself to fully give into it! Now he had redoubled his efforts, searching for the smallest opening, but there was new security in his own strength in Naruto, something that couldn't be called serenity, but that still kept anger at bay even when he fought the damnable Uchiha. Kurama threw himself against the gates of his prison and cursed Yondaime Hokage and Shiki Fuujin, cursed Umino Iruka and Haku and Uchiha Sasuke.

_I'm not going to let you hurt Iruka anymore, you jerk!_

_When a person has something important they want to protect, that's when they can become truly strong._

_I won't let you leave, even if I have to beat you within an inch of your life!_

Naruto had learned what shouldn't have been possible for him to ever know, but Kurama wasn't beaten yet. This was one religious debate he was going to win even if it was the death of them both.

* * *

AN: Why was Taiki sleeping on the job? As Sasuke isn't a prisoner at this point per say, just a _flight risk_ – and because two people really can't effectively keep watch in two different locations all night long and still be fresh in the morning and neither Konatsu nor Kaede is a match to any of the three – he just set some traps that would wake him up if Sasuke or Sai tried to leave the building. He counted on Tsubaki to be able to do the same for Kabuto, but…

No-one expects Kabuto! Just like the Spanish Inquisition. (And he's also the unsurpassed master of Really Uncomfortable Truths. Ouch, Kabuto. Just ouch.)


	12. Chapter 12

**Where Everyone Has Some Food for Thought**

* * *

**056. Breakfast**

Migiwa wasn't the biggest city Naruto had ever seen, but even from the deck of the ship that had taken his group to the city it appeared easily the most colourful and lively. The Fire Country capital was bigger, but it had been an awfully stuffy place; temples with ornamental tower pavilions and kidney-shaped ponds and houses with pillars and decorated roofs. That one city in Water Country had been even bigger, but there had been slums and it had been a pretty sad-looking place, like a wet puppy that gave you pitiful look so you would take it in from the rain and feed it. Migiwa had banderols and signboards in bright red, deep blue and some really eye-grabbing neon colours, busy-looking streets with roofs so near each other he would barely have to hop from one to the other and a huge fish market next to the harbour.

It was a homely-looking city and Naruto loved it on sight. Too bad they couldn't stay for a day or two, but busy-busy! Danzo couldn't wait.

"La-la-laa, come morning, come day, I wish in me heart it was Sunday," Naruto sung as he marched down the landing plank to the wharf, clutching his shirt over his heart. "Miso for breakfast all week long, and sweet ramen on a Sunday!" The ship had only offered traditional breakfast, sadly enough, but here they could surely buy some ramen.

"I thought it was supposed to be sake, Dobe," Sasuke grumbled as he stepped after Naruto. Naruto shook his head.

"No way, I'm much too young to drink. They didn't let you do that in Oto, did they? Because it's really bad for your liver, you know…" he asked, worried. It would be just like Orochimaru to be even more irresponsible responsible adult than Ero-sensei was.

"Don't be stupid! Of course I didn't! There is nothing wrong with my liver," Sasuke barked, his face red. Sai tilted his head and looked confused, but then, he rarely looked anything else.

"What if I like miso better?" he asked. Naruto hung his head sadly over his heathen tastes, but then, more for him.

"Then we can steal each other's breakfast all the week, it works out in the end," he said. Sai took out his book again and started trying to rhyme that, without much success, but Naruto noticed how he didn't walk into anything or anyone even though his face was in the book. He was so going to demand Ero-sensei taught him to do that once he returned, it would be so cool. Except maybe he didn't have to wait, Tsubaki-chan probably knew the trick too…

Someone said something good-natured and polite to Tsubaki as they walked down the street, something about having two so cute sons, and then asked if the two pale-haired were her nephews or cousins. Naruto wasn't really listening to the small talk since his eyes were roving the streets for ramen stands, but then Sasuke stiffened suddenly.

"You," he hissed to Naruto and clutched his neck over the seal that stuck out from the pale skin, so bright and angry. "I think she would rather claim you. You are _wholesome_." It came so out of nowhere that Naruto stumbled over his two feet as he turned to look at Sasuke.

"Er, thanks? What?" he asked, but Sasuke turned his face away.

"How being wholesome works?" Sai asked, and while Naruto had already learned that his questions tended to be weird with the side order of inappropriate, this was getting suspicious. Rice and miso for breakfast with a side dish of shared angst. There was something bugging Sasuke and Sai and he was going to get to the bottom of it.

**057. Lunch**

_"So you protect the roots of the tree. What have you done that protects Konoha?"_

_"I have killed Konoha's enemies."_

_"You believe that makes you necessary? Even green genin can kill for Konoha."_

Sai was running at steady pace, behind Sasuke and before Taiki. They were travelling an old gravel road between gently sloping hillsides, dotted only by a few wooden houses and shallow streams, towards a green line at the horizon. Once they reached Konoha's security zone he should escape and haste to warn Danzo-sama. Or should he? Sai wasn't used to feeling unsure of his duty. His duty was to obey, but to obey whom? He was... most uncomfortable operating with conflicting, incomplete intel. Tsubaki had taken place in front of Sasuke, Kabuto by her right side and Uzumaki Naruto had taken the point.

Tsubaki was Naruto's superior - probably. She was a jounin and Naruto only a genin, but she had been sent as back-up, to assist. She deferred to Naruto's judgement regarding Kabuto, Sasuke and Sai himself, even though she reserved the right to voice her doubts. The unclear chain of command was a risk in the field and she should have known better, yet she made the situation appear easy to manage. Adaptable, the Kiri defector had called her disposition and mumbled something about water elemantal chakra, though Sai was certain she was fire type.

Kabuto turned is head, easily defecting the general focus of Sai's attention. He wasn't certain of the exact limits of the man's capabilities at this time, but it was clear that the traitor was easily superior in skill and power to Sai, maybe all of them with possible exception made for Naruto and Taiki; the jinchuuriki's reported power levels fluctuated too much to get a proper estimate and he didn't know the extent of Taiki's skills.

"Why don't you talk to him?" Kabuto asked and the questioning cant in his voice forced Sai to forcibly relax his shoulders, to resist a grimace. He had been conditioned to not respond to the animal impulse to flinch after suffering physical damage, yet that tone made him want to argue even when there was nothing to argue against.

_"I am a tool to protect Konoha."_

_"You have nothing else to say? Then again, capacity to reason isn't in high demand in Root, now is it? Sandaime _disbanded_ Root, Sai. He decided that to strip humanity from Konoha is to strip Konoha from Konoha. So what are you protecting?"_

"Naruto," he called the jinchuuriki's name, lengthening his stride while Naruto turned his head and grinned. That ever-present happiness didn't fail to take Sai aback again. The jinchuuriki made the best high-danger assassins, not to mention the high-destruction ones, yet he couldn't imagine Naruto serving in that capacity.

"Yeah? What is it?" Naruto asked, jumping over a small tree that had fallen across the road, then grabbing a branch and throwing the trunk to the side of the road with ease. "There, now it isn't going to bother people." His rhythm had barely broken at all. Sai wondered why he had bothered.

"You are wholesome..." Sai begun, making Naruto groan. He didn't let that stop himself. "Are you still useful to Konoha?" he asked. Naruto cocked his head to the side and snorted.

"Obviously. I'm totally devastating, like those orange, poisonous toads, they are cool and so is their jutsu," he boasted and Sai remembered that in nature the brightest coloured animals were the most dangerous. He looked at mild and mellow Kabuto, Kabuto who called him Naruto-sama, and Sasuke who glared daggers at him, but didn't object, surprisingly. Just few days ago he would have sworn that those two would only return to Konoha in chains or body bags. When an enemy was enemy no longer, wasn't the "enemy" dead then? Even if the person wasn't?

"_Vision that doesn't make you happy, doesn't make you productive member of the village, or even somehat proficient in anything more subtle than outright slaughter. Vision that Konoha has rejected once already. Vision of Danzo; if you haven't got it in you to be angry for being used, are you angry then for being _wasted?"

"I don't know what wholesome issues you have got here, but real ninja aren't controlling jerks. I guarantee you, the ones going on and on about people being tools are the biggest hypocrites. Just look at Zabuza, he said he wanted to overthrow the Mizukage because he was a tyrant and then he became an enforcer for another tyrant for rebellion money. Seriously, what the hell?" Naruto asked, lifting his face upwards as if to ask intervention from some higher being, but then his features softened, gentled. "At least he regretted in the end..."

_"Trying to have the last word with Naruto is like having a lunch with a tiger. The food may be good, but the tiger always eats the last."_

**058. Dinner**

Naruto wasn't a vicious person by nature, but he was occasionally willing to make an exception. The yakuza of Makimura could have testified to that. It was like a joke: two wolves and a saber-tooth sheep walked into a diner…

They had covered a good distance already when the oppressive, dark clouds started to gather in the sky. It wasn't quite dark yet and they could have gone a while longer when they happened upon an old barn, half-filled with hay, but Tsubaki-chan decreed they should stop and Naruto was all too happy to do so, as he wasn't too keen on sleeping under a tree in rain. Sai was muttering something about confused chain of command, but he decided that Sasuke and his issues were enough to bite that night and ignored it. Sasuke, who walked into a nearby kind-of-forest-except-too-small to brood and didn't come back when the rain started. Right. Figures.

So Naruto went after him because if Sasuke happened to be wet, well, it was his problem, not a reason to delay the talk. He found his dark, brooding teammate standing under a buna tree, hanging his head and slouching. Naruto wasn't precisely cold, but water was running down his neck and back and he was feeling pretty dark himself when he jumped under the cover of the leaves. Then he looked at Sasuke closer.

"So…nice weather?" he tried and pressed against the tree. It protected him from some of the rain, but it was a plant, not an umbrella.

"…Hn." Sasuke was dripping even more than Naruto was, but he still managed to look scornful. Naruto blushed and bristled. So it was a dumb thing to say, yeah, didn't Sasuke already know that the filter between his brain and mouth was kinda faulty?

"Look, I'm trying to have a conversation here! And you are the one too dumb to come in from the rain! Asshole." Naruto kicked a patch of grass that hadn't ever done a thing to him. Things weren't this awkward before; he didn't even know why he got all shy and nervous all of a sudden. It wasn't like Sasuke was going to run away again, right?

"Asshole? Is that the best you can come up with?" the jerk asked and all bashfulness evaporated in a second. So that was how he wanted to play it? Fine then, Naruto could deliver.

"Bootlegger! Nitwitted bastard of a freshwater pirate and a scabby mule with the brains of an oyster with shits that was dropped on its head as a baby!"

"What?" Sasuke mouthed after a good, long pause. Naruto grinned as he watched Sasuke's befuddled face. Hey, he didn't get to see the Ice Prince drop his jaw every day!

"Jiraiya-sensei spends a lot of time at red light districts. Lots and LOTS of time." Naruto nodded sagely. He had learned that once you edited out all the mentions of between-legs body parts and sex acts, those people had some fun curses. He had also learned well over fifty words for female parts, roughly half of them something he didn't even want to think too loud for the fear Tsubaki-chan might hear and half so convoluted that walking past a fruit stand or a flower shop or, or a fishwife's stand could make Sakura-chan blush if she read some of that poetry shit the geisha liked so much. A few hundred years ago people had so many words for the female parts that it was really hard to have a conversation about anything without inadvertently mentioning at least two of them.

Seriously, who makes a temple synonym for a geisha house and purse for, well, _that part?_

"So you say I'm one of your "precious people" and chase after me," Sasuke begun; he didn't quite unbend enough to make quotation marks with his fingers, but Naruto could hear them in his voice loud and clear. "What if I say I can't stop l-caring for my brother?" His voice dripped snide all over the place, more than the tree dripped water.

"That bastard," Naruto grumbled and again the red-hot _otherness_ inside him licked his chakra like a hungry dog. He kicked it down firmly. Sasuke was an idiot and a bastard, but he needed him now, no time for stupid personal theatrics.

"You don't think I'm disgusting?" Sasuke asked. He was still trying to sound cold and mean, but not quite pulling it off. It was dark, the sun low and behind thick, dark clouds, and Naruto didn't see Sasuke's face all that well, but the way his errant teammate hunched his shoulders made Naruto want to hug Sasuke. He thought better about it since Sasuke would only punch him.

Then he did it anyway.

"What the – stop it, you idiot!" Sasuke did punch him, but it was a weak, feeble thing and Naruto could hear a small, quiet sob. The red was back then, a thick, suffocating blanket over him as he imagined tearing Itachi's heart from his chest with his bare fingers and blood _everywhere, red, red, red_. He couldn't remember how he pushed the red back this time, but when he came back to his senses, they were both dry and the raindrops falling on his skin were _sizzling_.

Naruto wasn't a vicious person by nature. Iruka-sensei had once long ago told him that a real agreement was something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. Naruto had agreed then, imagining the sheep in orange colour – having only seen black and white pictures of the creatures and hey, his woolen clothes were orange – and feeling a lot of sympathy for the poor creature. Sasuke was wide-eyed and looked a little scared so Naruto hugged him again – and this was where the simile came crashing down because he thought of Itachi. The mental picture of wooly (bloody Saber-Tooth) Sheep-Itachi was fairly ridiculous because it was so devastatingly cute. _Baah, baah_, Sheep-Itachi bleated and fluttered its red, swirly eyes inside Naruto's head. He smirked.

He was hungry, he was going to have a dinner and he was going to invite Sasuke because he was generous like that. Ero-sensei was kind of lazy and a pervert, but he was good and Naruto was going to train and if Itachi didn't want to get eaten, well, too bad. It was up to a vote and it was two against one now.

**059. Food**

Evil wasn't a word that Tsubaki wanted to throw around lightly; she was a killer for hire after all. But she remembered the Kyuubi's attack and she was confident in calling that creature evil, its chakra terrifying in its raw killing intent. It was overwhelming, it was malicious, it had been thick in the air like the smell of blood and smoke from the burning buildings and every breath she had taken had been a battle against freezing in terror. Now she stood in the rain and watched his charge hugging the Uchiha. Terrible anger was radiating off the boy, bringing back scorching memories with it, but Naruto was even in his anger infinitely gentle.

"I think we should leave," she said, her tongue turning clumsily in her mouth as she turned her back to the picture. This gave… some food for thought. Literally, almost. She thought of Naruto's precious Iruka-sensei. Iruka-sensei said this, Iruka-sensei did that, always Iruka-sensei first to the extent that mentions of Kakashi-sensei and Ero-sensei sometimes seemed almost afterthoughts. She thought of Naruto's precious ramen, how the boy could scarf even the tasteless instant kind down bowl after bowl.

_A bowl of vegetables served with love is better than a three course meal served with hatred_, she remembered the old proverb. Not that Naruto ever failed to complain about vegetables, but he ate them all the same because Iruka-sensei had told him they were an important part of a shinobi's diet and Iruka-sensei was never wrong.

"Shouldn't we keep guard in case he loses control of the biju?" Sai asked, a black and white shadow in the dark. Kabuto's hand moved just a little bit closer to something that was in all likelihood sharp and pointy and Tsubaki found much to her horror that right now, just for that, she approved of the man.

They were huddling in the rain, just far enough that the two genin shouldn't notice them as long as they didn't start shouting. Taiki managed to stay dry somehow, deflecting the raindrops so his hair and clothes were just a bit damp. Kabuto wasn't dry, gratifyingly enough, but he managed to look very dignified and regal even when he looked like someone had thrown him overboard on their way over the gulf. Sai looked like someone might have thrown him to the sea and he wouldn't have cared, making Tsubaki wonder if she was in need of some remedial weather desensitization training. She was cold and the water was running down her back and even her underwear was damp by now, chafing as she moved.

"Let's go back," she said and started shepherding her group back towards the barn. "No-one is losing control here, no sense in getting even more wet than we already are."

"But how?" Taiki asked, walking slowly, turning his head to look over where the two boys disappeared into the shadows of the trees and the rain. "How can he feel like, like that and not do anything?" Tsubaki smiles as she recalled the day she had taken this mission, how she and Iruka had eaten at Ichiraku's, the warm sun and the rich taste of the broth and the misery she had now left behind.

"There are two men in Konoha. One of them is an academy teacher, the other is a ramen chef and when we return I'm going to kiss them both." And if there was still a hint of Kyuubi against the backdrop of the forest, the bite of it felt almost safe, like the canned wasabi beans that had been _her_ comfort food since she was ten years old.

**060. Drink**

_The first time Deidara met Morimoto Tomomi he didn't think much of her. She was two years older than he was, yet they graduated the same year and when she took her chuunin exams he stood in front of a panel that reviewed his jounin evaluation scores. She didn't have many prospects of ever becoming a jounin either, though of course she wasn't a bad kunoichi. She was dependable, the sort whose dedication to her village was beyond question, who was good on missions and didn't bring her drama to the battlefield; she wasn't the type to have any personal drama, period. She was supportive of her friends and comrades and an all-over nice person. She was pretty in the girl next door kind of way. She wasn't the type to catch a young genius' eye._

_She was one of the two chuunin assigned to Deidara on his second mission as a jounin. That mission was an unmitigated disaster: the information given to them had been inaccurate. Instead of four Kiri missing-nin trying to form a drug ring there had been fifteen from Kiri, Kumo and Ame, three of them jounin-level. The chuunin named Yasu died in combat and Deidara and Tomomi were taken prisoner, to be tortured for high-price information. As Deidara was the one in possession of more classified information and he was presumably the tough one as well, the missing-nin decided to soften him before working him over. Sleep deprivation, they decided, some beatings and of course the psychological torture of watching his comrade being tortured and breaking before his eyes._

_Tomomi didn't break on day one and she didn't break on day two. On day three they drugged her water, and while she tasted what had been done to it, the foul drink was forced down her throat._

_"We want dirt, little kunoichi, dirt on your precious village. Have you ever been part of a political assassination," an androgynous man the others called Osamu asked Tomomi after her eyes crossed; though Deidara wasn't perfectly certain he wasn't in fact a she._

_"Assassass…" Tomomi tried to pronounce the word, sounding confused._

_"Kill," Osamu corrected himself with a disgusted tone. Bound and gagged, Deidara could only listen in helplessly._

_There is a thing about prodigies and geniuses in the ninja world, something that might make being one not worth the cost; they have this disconnect from their peers, never quite understanding the why and how of other people because they are so different, though some hide this better than others. They also tend to be fragile in ways that aren't always outward obvious. That day Deidara wallowed in the dishonor of his failure, something he hadn't ever known before, not even contemplating escape because he was too busy contemplating suicide._

_"Kill," Tomomi sniffled. "My poor… I had red and orange and that white sort with the violet thing at the centre, you know. Zinnias."_

_"You… killed your potted plant?" Osamu uttered flatly, clearly unimpressed with this confession._

_"I didn't mean to!" Tomomi defended herself brokenly. Even with the gag it had to be obvious at this point that Deidara was gaping. "They were so happy flowers… Maybe. It's kinda difficult to tell with plants. And then there were my forget-me-nots. I sort of forgot to water them before I left for a mission. When I finally returned they were dead too..."_

_Tomomi went on and on and on about her inability to keep her flowers alive, telling of the gardenias and the lavenders and the red spider lilies. When she got to the bonsai tree some optimistic fool had given to her as a birthday present, Osamu was the one who snapped and delivered her a harsh slap._

_"Guaranteed to make people talk, oh yes." He – she? – threw the drug vial to a wall. "Now for the love of the Great Jade Dragon, _shut up!_"_

_They were then taken to the cell they shared. That was one extra bit of cruelty, as they were chained to opposite walls so Deidara could see Tomomi in pain and not touch, not help her. She drooped her head druggedly, but when the door was slammed shut, she lifted her face and her eyes were a lot clearer. Her skin was bruised and blooded and clammy, but there was a ghost of smile on her lips. That drink clearly hadn't been enough to fully divest her of her wits._

_"I've never had a bonsai tree," she confessed to him. "Of course no-one was stupid enough to give me one." She slurred a little and Deidara wondered if he had understood her right._

_"Why you claimed to have one?" he asked, surprised he could muster any curiosity over the issue._

_"Well, it was obviously annoying them. It's the principal-principle of the thing," Tomomi answered with a prim voice and then ruined the effect by laughing. It was a short and pained bark, but it was the real thing, going all the way up to her eyes and Deidara could only think _oh shit, now I'm in trouble_. How could he stand to watch her being tortured now? Yet what else could he do?_

_This was when she threw him a senbon she had palmed during the interrogation session, still stained with her own blood. "You are the better fighter. Make it count," she said. __This was the first time Deidara did what Tomomi told him to. He decided it was obviously a sensible strategy._

_This was the woman Deidara depended on for sanity like thirsty man depends on water. There was a reason Onoki never harmed a hair on her head despite that fateful psychological evaluation – Danzo would have been wise to follow his example._

* * *

AN: Now I'm going to take a small Christmas break from writing. Merry Christmas everybody!

Migiwa = water's edge.


	13. Chapter 13

**Where Secrets Are Revealed and Kept and Sakura Shows Latent Bipolar Tendencies**

* * *

**061. Winter**

Konoha didn't get much in the way of winter – the village was too far in the south for the temperature to drop below zero very often. That year they hadn't gotten snow even once before Naruto had left, but the winds from the west were chilly and the weather was uncommonly wet. The rain had started the day Hokage-jiji had been buried – or rather, his ashes had been buried as no-one had wanted to risk rinse-and-repeat of the Edo Tensei catastrophe – and it had only gotten more and more frequent since, like it was the summer and rainy season instead of late winter. It was even wetter than in Water Country and that, Naruto decided, was really kind of sad. But at least the dreadful weather meant that there were fewer people out that day. The people on duty were on duty of course, since being a loyal shinobi wasn't something that got called off on account of trouts swimming at your shoulder level, almost, but everybody who could be inside was.

With the exception of one self-proclaimed Blue Beast of Konoha and his student who were running around Konoha _on top _of the great wall and shouting how The Flames of the Youth Were Keeping Them Dry!

"Was that… some kind of defensive genjutsu?" Taiki managed to utter, his jaw hanging open just the littlest bit.

"I think the cherry blossom petals and the sunset were…" Tsubaki-chan muttered and pushed her wet locks off her face. "I had forgotten how, uh, _intense_ that can get."

"Is that even legal to do in public?" Sai asked and stared at Naruto. He had more of an expression on than any of them had gotten out of the boy previously.

"Technically yes, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea. You try that and they will dress you in green skintight spandex and wake you up every morning at half past four and before you know it you'll be speaking with capital letters too and then you can't ever pull off an infiltration mission again," he cautioned Sai. Not that Sai could have pulled one off now if his life depended on it, but that was an unnecessary detail. Sai asked wildly inappropriate question all the time, like about sexual practices from that one monk that all but swallowed his tongue, and he was just weird enough he could think making a trio out of the Youthful Duo was a good idea. And that, Naruto decided as he remembered one of Iruka-sensei's long-ago lessons, would be a war crime of some sort and committing war crimes during the peace would be even sadder than wet winter.

"Okay, this is our plan," he said. "You, Sasuke, are our ticket through the gates without search. I mean, Sai should have travel papers – you have them, right?" he asked Sai, who nodded and picked a stack of papers from his pouch. The travel papers were a simple pass telling whoever looked at them that a person – name here – had been sent on a sanctified mission by the Hokage. Not that a nin couldn't get back to Konoha without those, but with them it was simply a matter of walking through the gate after the two chuunin _visibly_ standing guard checked you were the person the papers had been given to. If a nin lost the papers, he or she had to stand in front of the gates while the guards manning the post went things over the long way and jumped through every hoop to verify that the person standing in front of them had left Konoha legitimately and wasn't in fact AWOL – and after that they got slapped with a reprimand for losing the papers unless there were some _really_ mitigating circumstances.

"Great, so Taiki's defecting and that's why he hasn't got papers. Everybody's going to make ballyhoo about you returning so no-one should pay too much attention to Taiki and Kabuto anyway. If they insist on bothering by the book and keeping you, though, are you okay with that?" he turned his head towards Taiki.

"…of course," the infuriatingly dry-looking man said, appearing surprised he was even asked. It had to be the Kiri thing again.

"Okay, if they keep you, try to stall when you tell them things. It's probably going to be at least half an hour before they get anyone to review you and after that just tell them about things before Kabuto came in detail – lots of details. But don't lie! That's only going to get you into trouble," he gave the orders and Taiki assured him that he had no intention of lying to the T&I at all, even less if Morino Ibiki was the one doing the review. It was kind of funny, that people were that scared of the man. Sure, he was grumpy and scary-looking, but he hadn't dragged Idate back after that Tea Country race by the hair so he had to be a nice person deep down.

"So Kabuto, can you make some sort of genjutsu that gets you through?" he turned his attention to the one _this_ whole ballyhoo was about.

"Of course, Naruto-sama. I won't be invisible per say, but I will affect people's perception of me to make myself uninteresting. With Sasuke as a distraction, this should be enough." His fingers flicked through a multitude of seals so quickly they seemed to blur and then Naruto found himself looking at a yew next to his friend. Huh; it was a good one.

So he led his merry – and not so merry in case of Sasuke and Sai – bunch to the great gates, thinking about Danzo and Sakura-chan, though for completely different reasons. It had been a long, miserable winter, trouble after trouble after trouble after Orochimaru and Sasuke being an idiot, but now it was over. Naruto whistled as he marched up the road and Izuko and Kotetsu's eyes widened until they were rounder than Lee's.

**062. Spring**

Haruno Sakura was sitting on her bed, reading through one of her sensei's medical scrolls, a topic of which was the muscles of the legs. Biceps femoris; part of the hamstrings group. Sakura pushed the scroll away for a moment and went through everything she could remember of that particular muscle. It was a lateral muscle of posterior thigh; two heads joined to different muscle groups, but what was the lower head part of again? It extended from the ischial tuberosity to the lateral condyle of tibia. It flexed the knee and extended the thigh… The long head had a tendon common with the semitendinosus muscle, right?

She looked at the scroll and saw that she had remembered correctly, though of course her knowledge had been incomplete. Biceps femoris was a muscle commonly injured in physical activity that required explosive bending of the knee as seen in sprinting. If the ninja was fatigued or hadn't warmed up properly they could suffer a hamstring strain or rupture, which was the tearing of the hamstring muscle. Avulsion of the biceps femoris tendon was the complete pulling away of the tendon from the bone… Ouch.

Tsunade-sama's medical scrolls made for a really depressing reading; telling all the fascinating ways ninja life could screw the human body up even without direct enemy contact. She had lately had to suppress the instinct to yell at a certain green-clad genin _to be careful with his tendons, dammit, because she was the one whom Tsunade-sama was going to make fix anything that was torn!_

"SAKURA!"

Sakura jumped up from her slouch, her heart hammering, but she didn't even have enough time to turn around when her window was thrown open and Ino jumped on her bed by her side.

"What are you still doing here? Haven't you heard?" Ino demanded and dragged Sakura up so they both stood up, the mattress dipping under their feet. Ino was still wearing her sandals and they had already left several muddy prints on Sakura's previously pristine, white sheets. Sakura felt a familiar sense of annoyance starting to throb at her temple; where were the manners these days?

"Someone better have invaded us again, Ino, because…" she began her tirade, but Ino just shook her.

"Sasuke's back!" Ino shouted and Sakura could not speak a word, could not move a muscle. Blood was hammering in her ears as she stood there dumbly, and Ino went on: "Naruto came back with him just a little while ago; they went to Godaime-sama's office. There was some Kiri jounin named Doihara who defected, I wonder how he's connected to this. Wasn't Sasuke in Oto?"

Sasuke was back. Sasuke was back and Sakura had no idea how to feel.

After she'd had time to think her action through after Sasuke left she had felt terribly ashamed. The first part, the worst part maybe, the part that thankfully no-one knew but Sasuke; she had offered to leave with him. It had been a stupid spur-of-the-moment decision and as angry as she had been with Sasuke after visiting her friends in the hospital, she had been grateful he'd at least kept her from ruining her life like that. She would never have seen her parents again, and she would have missed Ino as well, and Naruto and even Kakashi-sensei, she could have never returned to her home. She would have probably died young because of her stupidity… except not because Naruto wouldn't have let her.

Naruto. Now there was another reason to feel ashamed of herself. She had asked him to bring Sasuke back because she had been too weak to even attempt it herself and he had wound up in a hospital for his trouble. Not that Naruto wouldn't have tried to bring Sasuke back anyway, but even then, that had been a low point for her. She had sworn to become stronger so they could do it together, drag Sasuke back by force if necessary before Orochimaru took him over, but now Naruto had kept that promise while she had been stuck learning about the muscles of human body. And despite this all she was still grinning like a loon!

"Go, go!" Ino pushed her and Sakura exploded into motion, uncaring of her tendons and muscles. She jumped out of her window and only when her feet hit the ground she realized that she was still bare-footed. The cold mud was splashing between her toes and she was almost immediately wet.

"My sandals, Ino!" she shouted. Normally shoes were left by the front door, but ninja kept their footwear always near and true enough, the next second Ino threw a pair of blue standard issue sandals out of the window. Another second and she was already running.

It wasn't spring quite yet, not if one went by the calendar, but Sakura wouldn't have been surprised if the cherry trees of Konoha had started to bloom there and then from the sheer force of her joy. Even if she didn't know what else to feel, about herself and Sasuke and Naruto, at least she could feel joy that they were together again. It bubbled through her veins like her blood had been changed to soda somehow and sang in her ears like birdsong. To the foxes with the calendar, Team Seven was whole again and Sakura decreed that spring had arrived at long last.

**063. Summer**

Tsunade's father had once told her: "A man will promise a lot of things in summer he won't mean in winter." It was a Senju saying; Konoha at large used one that made parallels between making and delivering babies and promises to the same effect. Words were cheap. Promises were easy; it was action that came hard.

Naruto had unnaturally sunny disposition and he certainly promised a lot; the only shinobi Tsunade had ever known foolish enough to promise not to die, ever on duty, and honestly believe in his own words! By now she was starting to believe he just might manage that, somehow. In his case it wasn't a matter of gritting his teeth through the winter – though he could do that as well – but somehow warping the reality and turning winter into summer. Now he had fulfilled the promise he had made to Sakura.

She just really, really wished he hadn't fulfilled it _like this_.

"And you accuse Danzo of what?" she asked, massaging her throbbing temples. She needed more alcohol, immediately.

"His actions include, but are not limited to, several counts of unsolicited assassination of Konoha citizens, unlawfully taking Konohan orphans into custody – which I believe counts as kidnapping – to indoctrinate them into members of an organization Sandaime Hokage made illegal and disbanded, conspiring with a foreign leader – Salamander Hanzo – without the knowledge of the Hokage…" the silver-haired boy – a man at this point, really – went on with almost maniacal glee shining in his eyes, not minding the two Anbu standing ready to slay him at Tsunade's whim, their blades drawn. He was flanked by Naruto, who was giving her a look both pleading and so trusting it made her stomach churl, a defecting Kiri Anbu, somebody who was apparently a Konoha shinobi and still defecting to Konoha and Tsubaki, who looked much too unapologetic for allowing this madness to occur in the first place.

"And can you give me a reason why I should believe a spy of Orochimaru?" she grounded out, flinching at the betrayed look in Naruto's bright, blue eyes, damn it. It wasn't becoming of a Hokage to show vulnerability, least of all in front of somebody who was bound to notice and take advantage of it.

"I'm currently a member of the Root, Hokage-sama," the quiet one named Sai interrupted them. "I'm a Konoha shinobi, yet not in the register. I'm an orphan Danzo took, yet I doubt papers for my custody exist. I was sent to Makimura to assess jounin Ono Tsubaki's loyalties and assassinate her if I found her traitorous; I don't believe this mission was endorsed by you." And it hadn't been, damn it all. All missions of this nature had to be assigned by the Hokage personally, going behind her back like this was a crime in itself – and proof that the leopard hadn't changed its spots at all. Not to mention that the Root still existed and _that_ meant that she should probably get over her distaste of her traitorous teammate's reputed ex-flunky and hear what he had to say.

"You have half an hour," she promised darkly. "Start convincing me."

She came to regret those words very quickly. She tried to keep her poker face, but it wasn't helping her with this any more than it had helped her with cards. The Anbu in her office were obviously shocked as well; their faces might be hidden by the frozen porcelain grins, but their body language became more and more obvious, broadcasting shock and dismay. Naruto had maneuvered himself between Kabuto and Sai and was now holding their hands, his face red and his chakra flaring in a way that unnerved her, his face red with some strange exertion. These sorts of things were the reason she hadn't wanted to become Hokage in the first place! If even half of what she had just heard was true, or a tenth or a fraction of a fraction, she couldn't allow this travesty to go on anymore. Now she had to take Danzo down and that was bound to be a nightmare and a half!

"Enough, enough! I have heard enough. So now you profess loyalty to Konoha again? Despite everything?" she asked suspiciously. Kabuto had already proved to be deceptive and vindictive. Had he only returned to avenge himself? She couldn't even really blame him for such intentions – _if_, again that if, his tale had been true.

"My primary loyalty is to Naruto-sama, but since he intends to become the Hokage, it will amount to the same thing in the end," the boy answered, undaunted. He could look so very innocent when he smiled. That was another story Tsunade needed to get out of him, he and Naruto and how _that_ had happened, but she doubted she could bear to hear it right now.

"And you are defecting to us because of what?" she barked, pointing a dainty finger at Doihara. The man jumped a bit, but answered promptly.

"Naruto decided that I'm not evil enough to fit Kiri. I found that arguing with him is an exercise in futility," he said.

"And you are defecting as well?" she asked, her finger travelling to point at Sai.

"I don't know. Is it possible to defect to your own village?" the boy asked, and Tsunade couldn't have cared less at this point, but he went on: "Maybe I could defect to Naruto's cult. Miwa-sensei was kind enough to teach me to chant."

"YOU HAVE A CULT?"

"Don't blame me! It's all Taiki's fault!" Naruto scrambled backwards, his arms failing about like a windmill's blades.

"I didn't do it on purpose," Doihara defended himself, looking distinctly pale. "I didn't know he really was a jinchuuriki!"

And this cult had to do with the jinchuuriki? Of course, what else could it be? This was the sort of thing Naruto did, turning winter into summer. If she wasn't so proud of him, she might have cried when she anticipated the paperwork this would generate. She might yet cry anyway; she wasn't paid enough to deal with this, there wasn't enough money in the world and not enough alcohol either. When the door was slammed open and her apprentice barged in, jumping at Sasuke's neck.

Distraction, kami be praised. Now Naruto out of her office, yesterday.

**064. Fall**

Naruto had already known, of course. Kabuto had told him, that was why they had come to Konoha in the first place. But he got angry again, he just couldn't help it! And like all the time lately, Kyuubi was making a pest of himself, licking him with tongue of fire. But this time he could almost see it even though he was wide awake. It was like there was something orange and red just at the edge of his vision, something that moved, but when he turned his head it disappeared like water disappeared into dry sand. And there were words, just at the edges of his range of hearing.

_…ruto, your precious mot…_ Like the cries in storm winds, almost words, almost there. _…okage, you think sage…_ Red wind, so red. _…proud of his desc…_

"YOU HAVE A CULT?" Tsunade-baachan screamed, and it was like he had been balancing on a rope and now someone pushed him. The red shadows were gone with a crash and so was the voice, leaving him to the tender mercies of Tsunade-baachan. Her face was plenty red, though, and her eyes glittered. It was really ominous glittering.

"Don't blame me! It's all Taiki's fault!" he pleaded, all too happy to put the blame where it belonged. This was when the door was slammed open and Sakura-chan barged in.

She was wet from head to toe and her hair lay flat against her head, now a darker shade of pink, almost red. Her hem was dirty and dripping. She was still the prettiest girl Naruto had ever seen.

"Sasuke-kun…" she breathed and jumped at his neck. "I missed you so!" It hurt a little to watch her fawn over her precious Sasuke-kun, but Naruto smiled all the same. He was the one to bring Sasuke back so he was the one to make her smile so prettily, in a way, right? But then Sakura-chan took a step back and delivered a harsh slap to Sasuke's face. Naruto's jaw dropped as the sound of flesh hitting flesh echoed in the room.

"How could you do that? Doesn't the word "desertion" mean anything to you? And you tried to kill Naruto! Don't try to tell me you didn't mean to, you put an A-rank assassination jutsu through his chest, who does that to a teammate? He could have died, anyone else would have! Have you no heart?" Sakura-chan's voice reached a pitch Naruto had previously thought human throat couldn't manage and she punctured her tirade with one more slap, after which she threw her hands around Sasuke's neck again. "At least you are back now, you can make it better. That's good," she crowed.

It was a pretty quick mood swing, but it wasn't like Naruto was really angry either. Being friends was like the fall; when the leaves fell you didn't kick the trees, you encouraged them to try again next year. Besides, Sasuke's both cheeks glowed red from her strikes and he stood still and straight like an iron rod, his face panicked like a mouse's when it stood in front of a snake and that was really hilarious. Naruto snickered a bit, but that only turned Sakura-chan's attention to him. Now he took a step back, suddenly unnerved. She was obviously kind of unhinged from the happiness and who could tell what she might do? He had done nothing to deserve a slap.

"Naruto, _thank you_. You are a wonderful person and I'm so happy you are my teammate," she said solemnly and gathered him into a hug. Now it was his turn to stand still, his arms rigid against his sides. His eyes were stinging and he blinked them rapidly – he wasn't going to cry, really! His heart was so warm and fluttered so hard it almost hurt and he was so happy he wouldn't have cared if she had slapped him right then. He would have done anything for her, moved mountains and beaten armies all alone!

"You!" Now Sakura-chan pushed him away suddenly and turned to the side. Naruto stood there confused, wondering if now was the time for the slap, and then saw that she had turned towards Kabuto. "Traitor!" she hissed, her fingers spread like a bird's claws.

"Hey, he's the one who brought Sasuke back to me! In that barrel too," he defended his friend's character. And the barrel had been a nice touch, really.

"Is that so? Then… thank you, I guess," she said hesitantly. She didn't look happy to thank Kabuto, but she looked less ready to horribly maim him at least. Kabuto smiled in a sheepish manner and tried to look appeasing.

"Is she suffering from bipolar disorder?" Sai asked. "How she passed her psychological evaluation?" This in turn made Sakura-chan screech again in indignation.

"As heartwarming this scene is, this really isn't the time and place for it," Tsunade-baachan said dryly and muttered something about the evils of the paperwork that awaited her.

"Make Danzo do it when you catch him. He deserves it anyway," Naruto proposed and grinned when unholy light lit the Hokage's eyes.

"I think I will. And I'll castrate Jiraiya for leaving you alone for whole two months. What was he thinking would happen?" The right answer probably wasn't "not this." She was rubbing her knuckles and grinning really, really ominously.

Kabuto was the one to suggest that the happy reunion could be relocated to the waiting chamber outside the office as the participants weren't really necessary to the conversation anyway. Naruto wasn't stupid and he remembered there was something Kabuto thought he shouldn't hear or ask, but he really didn't want to leave either Sakura-chan or Sasuke right then, and if it was something he needed to know, then Tsunade-baachan would tell him anyway. He happily let himself be herded out along with his teammates and Sai.

**065. Passing**

"Naruto-sama can't find out. He couldn't keep this from Sasuke and he must not find out. The Uchiha are never the most stable people from begin with; it's the strain improvident use of the Sharingan causes on the brain," Kabuto said.

"Damn you, Danzo," Tsunade whispered. "Damn you to hell for this." Because they might have managed to avoid the catastrophe so far, but they had no way of knowing just how many people knew and how inclined they might be to keep the secret – or to reveal it. Three could keep a secret, they said, if two were dead.

May Danzo rot in hell, for one day this skeleton would claw its way out of the closet and then there would be hell to pay.


	14. Chapter 14

**Where Windows Play an Important Part and the Storm Breaks**

* * *

**066. Rain**

A long time ago Sai had a brother who called himself Shin. He didn't know if Shin was his brother's real name, a code name given to him or simply something he had made up, but Shin was Shin and in a show of life's great ironies he dubbed his cute little brother Sai.

(It was written with different kanji than Sai's code name, but the kanji used meant " to offer prayers" so the irony ended up counting anyway.)

Shin wasn't related to Sai by blood as far as they knew – though admittedly they didn't know anything about their blood families so it was a possibility, however miniscule – but Shin insisted that genetics weren't a minimum requirement at all. Young Sai had no idea what genetics meant, but he was inclined to take Shin's word for it back when Shin lived. They only ever had one mission together. It had been the mission that got Sai "blooded" as part of the Root's desensitization program and the target was simply a merchant who had somehow caused some harm to Konoha.

"Don't ask me what he did. Maybe he sells to Iwa too. Maybe he committed a tax fraud. It doesn't really matter anyway," Shin had told Sai. He was there as a senior operative to ensure things went smoothly and to witness the killing. Sai could remember it was a beautiful, sunny day and the merchant had reserved a room from an inn that coincidentally looked over a steep cliff to a river that divided the town in two. The river was only deep enough there that the water reached a grown man to a waist, but the flow of it was fast, the water was very cold and most importantly the bottom of the river was full of big, sharp rocks.

"Sai," Shin had sighed. "It was supposed to look like a natural death." This reproach had made Sai very confused.

"Isn't it natural to die if one falls out of the window into a river and is knocked unconscious underwater?" he had asked.

"Maybe if the window had been open," Shin had groaned, taken his hand and shunshined them both away.

Now it was raining, Sai's name meant rhinoceros and he had betrayed Danzo; it had been the last minute to do so, figuratively speaking, as he had already been scheduled for a curse seal application like all Root ninja. Only this mission had delayed it and Sai wondered if the sensation of lightness located within his chest was a psychosomatic symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder. He was almost sure he wasn't traumatized, but no-one had ever explained to him what being traumatized felt like so he couldn't be sure. He was standing in the waiting chamber outside the Hokage's office and witnessing as Naruto spoke of his travels with Jiraiya and great ramen bars, Sakura spoke of her medical studies and their jounin sensei Kakashi who was out of village for a mission and they both ganged up on Sasuke, asking questions and receiving mostly one-syllable answers.

"So Ero-sensei offended this miko and let me tell you, some of them can do seriously weird shit when they get angry…" Naruto looked like he was going to explain, but this was when Sasuke decided to volunteer a sentence.

"Can't all women?" he asked. This made Naruto grimace and look at Sakura, but she only threw her head back and laughed.

"Keep that in mind. I know where your tendons are, you know," she threatened, yet her words made Naruto grin and Sasuke appeared unconcerned.

"Can threats of violence be used as a form of bonding?" he asked. Sakura and Sasuke turned to give him a look that was… disbelieving was close and so was exasperated, but Sai was certain he was missing some important nuance.

Personhood: The Art of Being Fully Human had read_: Love is also heavy rain that falls freely and washes away the hurts and chains of the corrupt heart of man; and, like thirsting saplings, the heart reaches up to the heavens, and the cry of it calls aloud for relief from thence_.

In the beginning it was a sunny day, Sai's name meant offering prayers and he threw a man out of a window. Now it was raining, Sai's name had changed and he was leaning back against a window. It wasn't locked.

"Only if they know you don't really mean it, or if they know you mean it with love and stuff. But don't get it mixed with masochism, though Sakura-chan probably suffers from that too, what with having a thing for the bastard…"

After this things happened quickly. Sakura punched Naruto, who should have been able to dodge it, but for some reason declined to do so. He was thrown back towards Sai and Sai could have dodged, but he wanted to catch Naruto. He managed, but the force behind the punch threw him back as well and the window was thrown open. It was the end of one chapter of his life, it was raining and Sai had just been thrown out of a window. He noted it was nice symmetry. He even laughed a little as he flipped over in the air.

Of course he and Naruto were all right. They weren't ninja for nothing.

**067. Snow**

The plan Tsunade put together was simple, out of necessity; they were on a time limit and the moment Danzo found out either Kabuto or Sai were back in Konoha they would lose the element of surprise. And they needed that surprise, badly. According to Sai there were currently twenty children under the age of sixteen in the Root, not counting himself, fifteen of them under the age of twelve and five were precisely five years old new recruits – something Tsunade found completely revolting.

If these kids, half-trained in the best cases, got between her Anbu and Danzo's jounin in a fight it was going to be _ugly_.

The attack was to be three pronged. Tsunade had sent a message to Danzo about Uchiha Sasuke's return – a message she was certain he didn't need anymore – and an order to arrive to meet her in her office. What was waiting for him there was an ambush and Shizune disguised as Tsunade to lure the man inside. Her student couldn't fool Danzo for long, but hopefully long enough for him to close the door behind him. Another part of this operation was going to be the house arrest of Utatane Koharu and Mitokado Homura. Tsunade wanted to believe they had simply been subtly controlled by Danzo's stolen Sharingan, but she couldn't allow them to roam freely before the situation had settled and they had been officially cleared of all accusations.

The second prong was the Operation Think about the Children, the one Tsunade was personally leading. According to Sai (and Kabuto, damn the creepy man Naruto had decided to adopt like a stray puppy) the Root trainees had different schedules depending on their skill level and classes, but they all ate at the same time in the same place. The plan was to sneak in at dinner time and hopefully avoid fighting, catch them in the trainee mess hall and start to order them around.

This was why Tsunade was needed personally. These children were trained to be fanatically loyal to Konoha and Tsunade was the _current military dictator_ of the village, however little Danzo liked this fact. There was no telling if these child operatives would acknowledge the normal village hierarchy and take orders from her jounin, but Tsunade doubted that even Danzo had gone as far as to denounce the position of the Hokage, especially since it was a position he had his eyes on. As long as there were no conflicting orders from the war hawk, the children should follow Tsunade's orders like good little drones. Should.

The third prong would be the main assault of the Root Headquarters after Tsunade go the children out, or if and when the distress signal came. Rooting out the agents who weren't in the headquarters would be a nightmare and the clean-up of the agents embedded in other villages would probably take years, but if everything went to a plan the main force should be crushed in an afternoon. Again, should.

Tsunade was holding up an umbrella and giving the map Sai had drawn for them a last glance. They stood in front of an entrance to an old civilian shelter that had been abandoned after the Kyuubi Attack because of structural damage that had been inflicted on it. It should have been demolished years ago, but somehow the issue had gotten lost in the bureaucratic swamp of the village administration.

"Why am I not surprised," she drawled and pushed the map down her cleavage. "Sai, take point. Cat, behind me, you are responsible of the genjutsu, Asp, you advance on the ceiling. Neutralize any guards we encounter. Silently." A second later only Sai could be seen entering the shelter.

The above-ground part of the shelter was a sturdy, gray cube with a door. The below-ground level was a bigger gray cubicle space with everything stripped off – except, of course, an entry into a sewer separate from the main Konoha sewer network. After a long climb down, a hundred crouched, narrow meters and two turns the sewer got… rather absurdly spacious for a sewer. This was when they met the first guard. It was a woman with mouse brown short hair, a mask that depicted some sort of bird on her face and her hand on the handle of her tanto.

"Id and identification code," the woman demanded with a toneless voice.

"Id ROOT522. A red hand hanging from a tree, a silent sentinel under the tree's roots. Standing silent, loyal to the end," Sai answered with an equally flat voice. It was a nonsense sentence like all Konoha identification codes, but not one Tsunade knew and as a Hokage she was supposed to know them all. The guard stepped aside, only to fall back, her throat slit open.

She was angry as she stepped over the body that Cat's genjutsu swiftly hid from view. There had been no need for that woman to die but Danzo's delusions. Konoha was a village of special snowflakes and while it wasn't _quite_ as nice a place as the propaganda tended to paint it as, the truth was that they encouraged individuality as they best could in the framework of loyalty to the village. Konoha could and would demand its tithe in life and limb, in blood and tears and a series of funerals to attend to, but identity, the right to pursue personal happiness despite the risks? No. Danzo. Had. No. Right. She was fuming as they passed one more guard before entering the trainee barrack division, luckily a low-level security area.

"There," Sai said and pointed towards a closed door. "There is likely at lest one adult operative supervising."

"Good," Tsunade growled and cracked her knuckles. "It's time to save my little snowflakes." And she kicked the door open.

**068. Lightning**

Kabuto waited in the small ante chamber behind the hidden door in the Hokage's office, waiting with five Anbu. He knew better than to think that he was trusted by anyone except Naruto-sama, but the Hokage was banking on his hatred of Danzo to not turn on her shinobi mid-battle – and if he happened to die taking Danzo down, one less headache for her. He understood that the woman was fond of Naruto-sama, which was a good thing considering her surprisingly ruthless streak, but he would have to keep an eye on her regardless. Politics could turn even a mouse into a monster.

He knew the moment Danzo stepped into the office. There wasn't a single audible step, the door didn't creak or click shut, but the tinge of Uchiha in the chakra of the man was impossible to mistake. They all acted as one.

Sable shunshined between Danzo and the door, barring the way out, while Serow took her place between the man and the window. Marten, Squirrel and Crane flickered into a half circle that left Danzo now completely surrounded. Kabuto simply stepped into the office and Danzo's head immediately turned towards him; he didn't feel even the slightest hint of the fury he had half-expected to consume him when he finally stood in front of the man, ready to take him down. Instead it was like all his blood had turned to ice water so cold it burned from within. He was going to kill Danzo and there was no joy in the thought.

But there was _satisfaction_. There was a sense of _completion_.

"What is the meaning of this, Shizune?" Danzo asked. Well, they hadn't really expected to fool them man any real amount of time. Shizune allowed her henge to fade and stood up, sending the legs of the chair scraping backwards on the floor.

"You are under suspicion of several counts of unsolicited assassination, several counts of kidnapping of a Konoha citizen…" Shizune went through the short list while Danzo stood in the ring of bared steel, seemingly unaffected. He was an old, wrinkled man, frail-looking, leaning on a cane; no-one relaxed an inch because of this. "Please surrender into our custody pending further investigation into your affairs," Shizune finished her piece. It needed to be said, Kabuto suspected, if for formality's sake only.

"So be it, then. Daitoppa!" The sad way Danzo inclined his head didn't fool Kabuto in the least. He flickered his way through a series of seals that allowed the wind to simply whirl around him, but the Anbu and Shizune weren't as well prepared or as nimble of hand and they were blown away against the walls, the desk falling over Shizune with a crash and a book case almost hitting one of the Anbu.

Kabuto struck at Danzo too quick for the man to evade him and the strike connected cleanly and with full force. He felt the body of his enemy break beneath his hand, but even as the man landed in a heap, his back twisted at a seemingly unnatural angle, Kabuto knew that it had been much too easy. Marten was foolish enough to prove this by leaping to the old councilor's side and taking a lightning-quick wind jutsu to the chest, falling bleeding on the floor.

Fighting in an enclosed space was a skill of its own. Kabuto stepped to the side and watched as Shizune made a daring spurt into the middle of the melee and dragged the badly bleeding man to the minuscule safety the ante chamber offered and begun to heal him, her hands glowing gently blue. It was impossible to shunshin away from the entirety that the office and the ante chamber formed and the heavily enforced walls withstood the tail end of the jutsu strikes that shredded flesh and furniture and covered the floor in water. But while Danzo was the one who inflicted the most damage in the fight, he couldn't seem to finish his opposition. The man _was_ getting on in years.

"What an uncomfortable age that must be. Now if you'd asked my advice, I'd have told to stay twenty-five – but it's much too late now;" he remarked amicably. The water was up to his ankles now and coloured delicate, translucent pink.

"One can hardly stay twenty-five their whole life, unless they sink to Orochimaru's levels." Danzo answered nonchalantly and dodged a strike from Crane's tanto._ Or yours_, was the implication. Kabuto found his mouth stretching into a genuine smile of amusement.

"Stealing a whole body is wrong, but stealing eyes is all right? Do your morals operate on a weight-based system?" Kabuto inquired; and his suspicion that Danzo was more tired than he appeared was confirmed when the man only froze for the briefest of moments before dodging a fire jutsu that left the walls smoldering and pulled at the bandages covering the right side of his face.

The short list hadn't included bloodline theft and Kabuto wondered if the man had still thought he could get away with it all and remain in Konoha.

"Besides, _one _perhaps can't help growing older, but _two _can. With proper assistance you could have ceased at twenty-five. Well, better late than never, I suppose." And without further ado he leaped into the battle again. It was a trick, a feint, this partially reverse-engineered jutsu. He grabbed Danzo's left hand and made a one-handed seal with both their hands.

Old or not, Danzo was good. As a snake slithered out from underneath Kabuto's sleeve Serow, her face now bared by her cracked mask, exhaled wind-infused chakra onto her tanto to make it longer, deadlier. Danzo twirled both their bodies around, forcing Kabuto to drop on his knees on the wet floor. Serow and Squirrel both struck as Kabuto's snake sunk its teeth into both of their arms and at the same moment Danzo exhaled blasts of wind blades none of them could dodge at such short range. Then several things happened at once. The poison Kabuto was immune to, that Danzo in all likelihood could neutral as well, was released into their bloodstream. The wind blades stuck through Kabuto's flesh, forcing a pained groan from his lips as red and black spots danced across his vision. But this was the part where he had modified Anko's jutsu, when he released a blast of lightning chakra through the snake's body.

Kabuto had been stranger to elation for as long as he could remember, but the sight of Danzo being bodily flung by the lightning bolt struck through him with the rush of the best endorphin release technique. The walls would have withstood the impact easily, but Danzo hit the closed window.

**069. Thunder**

The door wasn't locked and Tsunade kicked it open with no effort at all. The head of every person in the mess hall turned towards her, standing seemingly alone in the doorway, Sai hidden behind her form. It was a mirthless place, with bare gray walls, plain long tables without table cloths and plain long benches, no carpets on bare gray floor and the children dressed in similar plain clothes, in dark blue and black under the harsh, yellow light of the light bulb without a lampshade.

Tsunade was distantly aware that her killing intent thrummed through the room in almost audible thunder. She was so out of control it was unacceptable… but maybe it was _appropriate_ all the same. After all, wasn't this whole mess the proverbial lighting from the clear sky, and didn't thunder always follow lightning?

There was a man in the room. He wore no mask, but as he flickered to Tsunade in the space between two heartbeats his face was so blank there wasn't much difference. He was quick and silent and powerful, he was merciless, he was at Anbu level… he was so outmatched it wasn't even fun. Tsunade struck fast and she struck bloodlessly to spare the children a little shock, and the man toppled over, groaning a little.

"These rash youngsters," she sighed and shook her head sadly. "They don't make insurgents like they used to. Back when we fought in Rain…" The children jumped up, drawing kunai, wakizashi and other short swords, the youngest grabbing shuriken and all of them ready to jump her. Tsunade had to hide a smirk. Completely brash, a little fire and no survival instincts at all; maybe they weren't that different from normal students after all.

"I am Godaime Hokage Senju Tsunade and that man was a traitor to Konoha!" she thundered. "Stand down and lower your weapons, soldiers." Twenty children froze momentarily, their faces reflecting hesitance, some more, some almost managing to hide it.

"She is the Hokage. I have seen a picture of her," one of the older children said, a boy with brown, cropped hair. Immediately all children hid their kunai and swords and bowed deeply to her.

"Hokage-sama," they chanted as an eerie underground choir. Not one of them asked a question.

"We are fighting traitors to Konoha now," Tsunade spoke to them; no need to tell the Root forces were the traitors here, not yet. "You are to follow me and my men above ground. Don't engage in battle unless directly ordered to. I declare you ameliorated!" Her words were met with pensive silence.

"But Hokage-sama, there aren't any windows we could be thrown out of… is this why we are going to the upper levels?" the same boy who had recognized her spoke with the slightest strain in his voice. Tsunade blinked.

"No, that's defenestrate. She means something else," a thin, doe-eyed girl corrected the boy. Tenseness barely there eased at her words and Tsunade realized much to her horror that the kids really had thought she wanted to throw them out of a window…

"I thought defenestrating meant gelding," the bell-clear voice of a tiny, androgynous child rung out from the middle of the crowd.

"No, that's castrating and it doesn't count as a natural cause of death even if they are drunk," yet another kid answered. "Except if the dead person is Jiraiya-sama. Hare-sempai said so, but she didn't explain why."

"Wasn't that sabotage?" the girl asked.

"That too, I guess, if they have a really important Kekkei Genkai, but vitiating means sabotaging," the silver-voiced child mused and bit his lower lip, appearing absurdly adorably precocious. Also, wholly disturbing.

"To ameliorate means making something or someone better. Now, make a crocodile, follow me and don't make any noise," Tsunade interrupted the Word of the Day Calendar recital before it got completely out of hand. She made a mental note that she needed to make several therapist's appointments because if children barely of age to enter the Academy were contemplating castration as a viable sabotage strategy…

None of the children were moving.

"Do you mean an area effect genjutsu, Hokage-sama? Or should we henge ourselves as crocodiles?" the boy who had first spoken up asked her. "The youngest haven't been taught either yet."

"Just form pairs, grab each others hands and follow me!" Tsunade barked, painfully aware that the clock was ticking seconds away and they could be discovered any minute now. And like the world was mocking her, that was when a huge boom rattles the floor under their feet like an underground thunderstorm, the echoes bouncing off the walls. What had happened? They hadn't sent the distress signal and the attack wasn't supposed to start before her group got out.

She herded the children out of the mess hall with the help of Cat and Sai, Asp keeping watch in an intersection of tunnels, and swore to herself that unless there were some really mitigating circumstances she was going to do some defenestrating, castrating being a very real possibility as well.

**070. Storm**

It had been a nice, mild winter so far, but now the fierce wind and the clouds massing south-east of Iwa suggested that a storm was on its way, and it was going to be a big one. It was half past midnight and Deidara was walking home from the mission office, dusty from the road, tired and annoyed and hoping Tomomi hadn't been sent on a mission alone while he had been running after a turned informant halfway across the country. It wasn't that she didn't know how to take care of herself, but he always worried anyway. What if a client lied about the mission parameters? What if the situation simply shifted in an unfavorably way? Deidara knew that few plans survived contact with the enemy and any random missing nin wandering through the area might cause trouble.

It wasn't that he didn't trust Tomomi to take care of herself, but if the unlikely happened and something happened to her…

He walked through the almost empty streets up to Tomomi's house. Iwagakure no Sato was built in a bowl-shaped valley surrounded by steep rock formations and cliff faces and Tomomi's house was one of the upper ones. It was a real house that even had a handkerchief-sized garden, not an apartment, but it was awkwardly shaped; long and narrow with a bathroom where sitting on the toilet required pushing the knees into the shower and a kitchen that was – according to Tomomi – a head injury hazard if even one cabinet door was left open. This was why she was able to afford it with the chuunin wages.

He had thought about asking her to move in with her, but the time was never right, somehow. If they weren't interrupted by someone at a fateful moment, she'd had a bad day or one of her friends had just been widowed and he always lost his nerve at the last moment. But the life of a ninja was short and perilous and he was determined. Today he would ask her.

It was too late. Deidara returned to tracks of blood on the floor and the clay statue he had made for Tomomi in pieces on the living room floor.

"Tomomi," he whispered, a cold, cold hand squeezing his heart, desperation bringing a tang of numb disbelief and despair to his tongue. He walked the apartment like in a bad dream, thinking how she had been supposed to be safe _in the village!_ Through the living room and into the bedroom through the kitchen…

The bedroom window was open. No ninja worth their first shuriken would leave a window open, but then, Tomomi hadn't left of her own free will, now had she? There was a bloody handprint on the window sill and Deidara leaned over it, thinking about how easy it would be to die here, watching over the long drop to the lower levels of the village.

But Tomomi had said that suicide wasn't an answer. She had said that wimpy defeatist attitude wasn't allowed in her house. He couldn't jump out of her window.

But when he took a step back his foot hit something, sending it clattering over the floor. The house was dark and Deidara had to kneel to find the little thing: a piece of ceramic armor. It was a thin sliver that curved ever-so-slightly, bone white with a reddish-brown stain – and a bright red line. He had to fumble for a light to make certain, but yes, in the corner of that curvy piece of ceramic was the end of a red line. It was a piece of a mask. It was a piece of a mask and Tomomi was nowhere to be seen and there was blood on the floor…

Deidara couldn't remember how he stumbled back into the living room, but there his foot hit a piece of clay, sending it clattering all over the floor. The noise echoed in his ears the drum beat and he stared, he stared, he remembered. A part of him was thinking of practicalities, of the Inner Sanctuary and the Tsuchikage's private library and the classified section of the mission archives as the shattered statue of a dove filled his whole field of vision. Another part finally, finally understood _why_ Tomomi had said that suicide wasn't an answer. She had been right, like always. He had just lost the only person who had ever understood him when even his parents had flinched away from his precocious, disquieting questions. It wasn't fair, but he wasn't looking for fair and he wasn't looking for death either – not for his own death, anyway.

"I will be a good shinobi for you, Tomomi-chan. I will find out who is responsible. And then…" He looked at the broken piece of art on the floor and smiled. He wasn't looking for fairness, he was just looking for who he could point the blame at and blast away.

"Art is a blast!"

* * *

AN: In Japanese folklore an akateko is a youkai that appears as an infant's hand hanging from a tree; the red hand in the Root code referred to that.

I hate writing fighting scenes and I write plot-driven Naruto fiction. I fail common sense forever.


	15. Chapter 15

**071. Broken**

Konaha had two councils: the Council Proper and the Assembly. While the Hokage was the military dictator of the village and on paper had the last word in absolutely everything, in practice he or she had to listen to the other powers that be simply to keep the cogs running smoothly and to avoid turning the village into Kumo or, gods forbid, Kiri. The Council Proper consisted of the Hokage's appointed advisors and it was most often consulted on matters of the village. Danzo had been a strange in-between person, not officially a member of the Council, but often taking part in its meetings all the same. But right now Danzo was the issue and the Council Proper was under house arrest, hopefully only until they were found innocent - hopefully they _would_be found innocent. So the day after the second dissolving of the Root Tsunade called together the Assembly.

The composition of the Assembly was more fluid than the Council Proper's. The major clan leaders were usually part of it, as were the ninja holding an office of importance and when the matters concerned trade and other civilian business the representatives of the civilian powers were invited as well. The rule of the thumb was that everyone who needed to be heard would take part. In this instance, as the case of Danzo and the Root was strictly military matter and classified seven ways to Sunday, the only people present were the Hyuuga, Nara, Yamanaka, Akimichi, Aburame and Inuzuka clan leaders and Morino Ibiki in the capacity of the head of the Torture and Interrogation.

"Order in the councilroom!" Tsunade called over Tsume's bickering with Hiashi and Shibi's speculation over the return of Sasuke and the rumours of Danzo falling off the Hokage's window with Shikaku, hitting the table with enough force to send a crack through it. "Gentlemen and lady. And Ibiki."

Ibiki nodded his head towards her as his name was called, the twitch of his lips stretching his scars.

"I am aware that many rumours are circulating in the village regarding yesterday's occurrences. It was indeed a busy day and I have called you here to confirm several of those rumours. This is true: Uzumaki Naruto brought Uchiha Sasuke back to the village, along with a defector from Oto and another from Kiri." Tsunade felt a little bad leaving Tsubaki's name off this initial announcement, but Tsubaki was already a jounin and while ninja were supposed to be exempt from the effects of the first impression, well... they were only human, with the possible exception of Hyuuga Hiashi who Tsunade was certain had become the anthropomorphic personification of stuffiness when the late Uchiha Fugaku had left the post open post mortem. She wanted these people to think "Naruto" whenever they though "The Return of the Uchiha."

"Good boy!" Tsume's laugh was throaty, bark-like, wild. But her good humor didn't last. "Hope you are belling that cat good and proper, Tsunade. My son came back from that _rescue mission_bleeding. And he wasn't even the one hurt badly," she barked, prompting a distressed noise and white knuckles from Chouza. His son's life had hanged by a thin, fraying thread, only saved when Shikamaru had granted Tsunade a use of the Nara Clan's medical book, something completely unprecedented. She didn't comment, knowing that was an argument best left to another day.

"This is also true: Danzo has been found guilty of several counts of high treason and many lesser offences. The Root has been disbanded the second time and he died yesterday resisting arrest. Councilors Mitokado and Utatane are under house arrest pending the results of the investigation into their actions," Tsunade declared instead, and as the voices were raised in questions, protests and general shock she knew that nothing short of the second coming of Kyuubi would bring an order to this chaos for a good long while.

Tsunade had wanted Danzo taken in alive if at all possible, but the reports of her Anbu made it clear that as much as would have liked to blame Kabuto for going against her orders, Danzo hadn't shown any signs of intending to surrender and had even been on offensive for a good part of the fight. He had survived the initial electrocution and the fall off the tower with a few third degree burns on his arm, two cracked ribs, a concussion and a broken ulna; long life of molding chakra made even an old body sturdy like that. But in the end he hadn't been in any condition to counteract the poison of the snake technique Kabuto had reverse-engineered from Anko and while Shizune had tried to save his life her efforts had been in vain.

But maybe it was for the best. The old-adage about a clan divided not standing firm had survived all these centuries for a reason. (Not that the Hyuuga were going to admit it or anything, but that was neither here nor there.) Granted, Danzo hadn't shouldered the whole blame for the Uchiha Would-Be-Uprising. While a good shinobi, Uchiha Fugaku hadn't been an apt politician and his refusal to compromise on anything had painted his clan nicely into the political corner. The whole clan had been proud to the point of being stupid and refused to admit even to the possibility of a bastard Sharingan holder, never mind that many shinobi had to take that sort of mission as well as kunoichi and sometimes condoms just broke or were faulty - and that teenagers weren't always (or ever) the most responsible people even in the most respectable clans. And certainly nobody twisted their proverbial arm behind their proverbial back and forced them to conspire against the village.

But the rumours about the Uchiha being behind the Kyuubi Attack could be traced to Danzo's doorstep. Danzo had certainly played on Fugaku's refusal to compromise, demanding the clan accept this, that and the other limitation to "prove their loyalty" and then working to undermine the trust of the other clans with every refusal. He had driven the Uchiha to stand back-to-back, all living in the compound, and then blamed them of secularism. Towards the end of his witch hunt the Uchiha had been almost as much outcasts as Naruto and that was saying something. Tsunade couldn't even tell if Danzo had honestly thought the Uchiha were a threat and had created an enemy where once had been an ally or if his motives had been less altruistic. The autopsy done on his body had certainly been telling.

Maybe it was for the best that the man was gone for good, with no chance to wriggle out of his just desserts. Konoha had been broken for a long time and he had been the one conquering his own by dividing, driving wedges between comrades in arms. Where Danzo had broken Naruto fixed. And maybe, just maybe he could fix things once more when - not if, but _when_- Sasuke inevitably found out and things got broken again.

**072. Fixed**

The day after Sasuke's return to Konoha and the battle against the Root saw the group confined to the Uchiha Compound, discreetly watched by several Anbu to make sure everyone stayed where they had been ordered to. In Sasuke's case this was because Tsunade was worried about him changing his mind the last second and running away again before his hearing. In Kabuto's case the restrictions weren't as much about him possibly running away as they were about what he could do _in_ Konoha if left unchecked. Naruto was ordered to stay there and keep an eye on them because he had the best track record with the two and the whole mess was at least half his fault as far as Tsunade was concerned.

Sai and Taiki were thrown in to the bargain because as new defectors they had to be kept under careful watch as well and that job was handed to Tsubaki as an unofficial punishment because she had failed to keep an eye and reins on Naruto. She had then mildly pointed out that maybe that wasn't the best referral she could have for a job like this, a comment which had earned her an account book to the forehead and a quick trip to the compound. Sakura didn't really have to stay with the rest of them, but it would have taken greatly superior numbers and a bloody battle to keep her _out_.

Naruto had asked Kabuto to look after Sai and keep him from annoying the Anbu, pretty please with fishcake on top, and Taiki was busy teaching Tsubaki some water jutsu – sword strike combination. This only left one cloud darkening the happy blue sky.

"A D-rank!" Sasuke complained. "They made me a D-rank!" Naruto grimaced as he thought of the mission ranking his and Tsubaki-chan's charges had been given. He was convinced that was just extra bit of punishment for the Great Sin of Generating More Paperwork for the Hokage-Sama, but since he was basically getting paid for hanging out with his friends he figured he couldn't complain.

"I think they are snubbing me, actually…" Wait, what was he even thinking? "Never mind, it's obviously all about you," he corrected himself.

They were all in the great living room of Sasuke's old house, cleaning the place. It had been left abandoned since the jerk had run away with Orochimaru and a force of vicious dust bunnies had invaded the place, strengthened their positions and now they were waging siege warfare against the re-settlers. The casualties so far included Sakura-chan's prettier cleaning clothes (worn and a bit small, but also very becoming shade of pink) and seven cleaning rags.

"Now, now, boys, there is plenty of blame to share," Sakura-chan chastised them gently, attacking a trench behind a book case with a lofty swing of her duster. "It's clearly both of you."

"Maa, it's good to see you all so lively," a very familiar voice spoke from behind them. They all jumped from surprise and turned swiftly around. There in the doorway slouched a very familiar figure holding a very familiar-looking orange book in his hand. "To think I return from a mission to find that the lost boy has found his way back home at last." Kakashi-sensei's words were lazy, soft, but when he stepped inside Naruto just got the feeling like someone had dropped a full crate of something really heavy on really soft, yieldy mattress. The whole room seemed to dip from the sudden intensity in the air and he felt the need to say something, anything, to ease it a bit.

"Sasuke's been demoted to D-rank!" he was quick to quip and then he could breathe again. Luckily he was quick enough to dodge the punch Sasuke aimed at him as well.

"I'm going to kill you!" Sasuke growled, but didn't actually jump at Naruto; he hid behind Kakashi-sensei's back just to be certain and struck his tongue out at Sasuke.

"Nyeh!" he taunted his teammate. Sasuke's face was a picture of pure disbelief.

"Naruto's founded a cult," Sakura-chan joined in with a sing-song tattle-tale voice, leaning against the wall. Her smile was really, really pretty and Naruto thought it was a great shame and crime she tried to hide it behind her hand.

"But Sakura-chan's learned a heart-exploding jutsu from Kabuto," he countered.

"The cult was really Taiki's fault," Kabuto joined in, walking through the door. Kakashi-sensei tensed a little, shifting his weight to the balls of his feet, ready to spring into motion. Kabuto just smiled beatifically.

"I merely saved Naruto from becoming yakuza," Taiki protested, walking in behind Kabuto. Sai and Tsubaki followed as well, crowding the room very thoroughly. Sai was too busy staring at them like they were all doing something terribly fascinating to say anything, luckily.

"That was half Tsubaki-chan's fault!" Naruto protested as Kakashi-sensei's raised eyebrow turned towards his direction. It was creepy how well that eyebrow could talk.

"But Naruto started it!" Tsubaki-chan tattled; that traitor! No apple dumplings for her!

"Well, well," Kakashi's mouth drawled, while his single visible eyebrow clearly asked _when_ _being Naruto had turned into a socially transmitted disease, somehow_. It even had a great sarcastic lilt; Naruto was very proud he had managed to inspire it. "I see you are having a great time regressing to Academy students."

"Don't tell Tsunade-baachan. We are supposed to be suffering as much as she is," Naruto shushed him and Sakura-chan laughed. It made something deep inside him relax at last, something that had been tied into knots for so long he hadn't even noticed anymore. Sasuke-teme had returned, Kakashi-sensei was there and Sakura-chan was laughing. His team was finally fixed, Kabuto had returned, he had a lot of new friends and all was well in the world now.

**073. Light**

Sakura didn't particularly like or trust Kabuto, but she _had_ learned that heart-exploding medical jutsu from him. There was a reason for this. She was making an effort for the future.

Out of Team Seven Sakura was the only one with a chance of normalcy, for any given value of normal the life of a kunoichi could hold. Naruto was doomed from the birth; he was holding Kyuubi and the Akatsuki was after him because of that. Sasuke was doomed from the moment Itachi went out of his mind and killed his whole clan; now he had to somehow get revenge despite Itachi being, well, _Itachi_and creeps like Orochimaru were after him because he was the last Sharingan holder unless Itachi counted. And again, Itachi. Sakura would have been very surprised if anyone had decided to go after that man when Sasuke was still an option. But Sakura had her chance of a relatively simple life and good life expectancy. She could make chuunin and become a good field medic with a few good genjutsu to throw at her enemies. She could get married to Sasuke or someone else and retire from active service to raise children. It would be respectable enough.

"Please teach me, Kabuto-sensei," she asked bowed to the man like a good pupil should. She didn't like him and she didn't trust him, but she figured she could trust Naruto to screw even the most messed-up head in the world straight.

"Aren't you already Godaime's student, Sakura-chan? Why come to me?" Kabuto asked, but Sakura got the feeling that he wasn't refusing her as much as he was weighing her.

The brightest light casts the darkest, sharpest shadows. Sakura thought of Sasuke-kun and Naruto and her smile illuminated the darkening courtyard. The shadow she cast behind her would have done a Nara proud.

"Tsunade-shishou's the best medic in the world and she could beat you in a fight, hands down, but she wouldn't… I want to learn to fight dirty. I want to learn to take down someone leagues above myself by doing something totally underhanded. Please, at least give me pointers on what kind of techniques I should develop."

Not that Sakura would ever do anything _too evil_, like that terrifying Edo Tensei technique for example, because she had standards. But she didn't have a biju or that strange charisma of Naruto that could apparently be weaponized as a kind of an unholy bastard offspring of therapy and a mind control jutsu. She didn't even have Kekkei Genkai or any inborn genius. She was just a clever girl with naturally low chakra reserves and good chakra control to make up for it. She was a just a girl with a chance for normal and two teammates who were anything but. Screw normal, Haruno Sakura was making an informed decision. She was scared, so scared, but people who abandoned their teammates were worse than trash.

One day she would stand out in the fields against Itachi or Kisame or some other shinobi their caliber and they would never see her coming.

**074. Dark**

Naruto managed to drag Kakashi-sensei out of the house eventually. It wasn't easy because he insisted on "supervising" the cleaning of the house, which Naruto was sure was an excuse to stare at Sasuke and make sure he really was there and watch he wasn't going anywhere. But now it was dark and everybody had either fallen asleep or at least gone to bed for the night and Naruto had a chance to tell his version of the story – without unnecessary comments from the peanut gallery about luring the unwary into his free love hippie commune cult with food, thank-you-not Sai. And okay, maybe he had missed Kakashi-sensei a little. But just a little, and definitely not the way he was always late to everything.

"Hey, you were late again! Everything's already over!" he pointed and laughed, leaning back on the porch. The Uchiha Compound really was eerily quiet and dark at night. The rest of Konoha always had streetlights and people walking out on the streets, shinobi returning from their night shifts and vendors moving their merchandise when most people were sleeping, but while the Uchiha Compound wasn't surrounded by walls it could almost have been its own little village within Konoha. A ghost village.

"There was this mayor in the Iron Country that had a really bad spider problem in the town hall and he asked me to sweep the webs away for him…" Kakashi-sensei explained. He was sitting on the railing by the porch, legs dangling over the side. "So what is this I keep hearing about your cult…"

"It's not my fault! At first it was just Taiki making an excuse to stay in Tea Country longer so he could defect and he didn't know I'm a jinchuuriki. Then Miwa-chan heard about it and she got all exited and the last I checked she was making Yondaime and Shodaime saints too and making up a lot of profound-sounding proverbs and I swear there is no free love involved, period!" Naruto was swinging his arms around, flailing about… and he noticed that now Kakashi-sensei was looking him straight to the face when he had just been scanning the rooftops. There that intensity was again, the same heavy feeling when he had earlier greeted Sasuke-teme. Naruto squirmed, trying to come up with something to say again, and then the heaviness lifted on its own.

"Proverbs, huh? How about this: It is the spirit that walks a person through darkness," he asked cheerily. Naruto groaned.

"Kakashi-sensei, stop collaborating! She's bad enough as she is. And should you even be encouraging this anyway?" It would be just like Kakashi-sensei to throw in with the cult idea just so he could watch Tsunade-baachan blame Naruto for the whole thing and do that eye-laugh thing. Why had he missed the Ero-Sensei Junior anyway? He must have hit his head one time too many when Ero-Sensei the First was putting him through dodge training.

"In darkness all biju are black. The darkness conceals the hippopotamus," Kakashi-sensei went on, unashamed.

"What those even mean?" Naruto moaned. "Next you are going to say something about the sound of one hand clapping in the dark." Mean, mean sensei, making fun of him in his hour of need. See if Kakashi-sensei got any dumplings either, that would teach him. And no ramen for him!

Then Kakashi-sensei did something he had never done before in Naruto's hearing. He laughed.

It was a very normal sound, but that was why it was actually pretty creepy. It wasn't the usual perverted giggle they heard when Kakashi-sensei got to a dirty joke in his ever-present books – Naruto could have done without having to know about those, damn cheap-ass Jiraiya-sensei for not getting a real proof reader – or the amused half-snort when he and Sakura-chan and Sasuke did something stupid. It was a real hah-hah-hah laugh like normal people made and Naruto was struck by the instinct to make no sudden moves, to make calming shushing noises with a mellow tone and back away slowly.

"So sensei is a saint now?" Kakashi-sensei mused and shook his head. "That's one cult I can get behind of."

**075. Shade**

In Iwa Jiraiya's name was Kenji. His hair was short and dark, his build slim and there was little of his exuberant personality in evidence. If anything Kenji held shades of the studious, serious Orochimaru of those long-past days when the Sannin were still young and invincible and all on the same side of the right enough and the totally wrong. A special Akimichi pill had taken care of his build – though gaining the muscle mass back afterwards was always a bitch – and cutting and re-growing hair was easy, but his best disguise was to shed Jiraiya like a snake would shed its too small skin...

Ah, damn, he was being sentimental. Thinking about Naruto and his errant teammate did that to him, but he had little choice right now other than remain in the house he had rented, staring at a wall and thinking. The sleeping beauty currently occupying his bed saw to that.

He had happened upon her the night before, on his way back from the secret meeting between Kakuzu and an Iwa representative he had witnessed. He had taken a shortcut through an alley between a blacksmith's forge and a shoemaker's shop and almost tripped over the legs of the girl leaning against a dirty wall. She had managed a surprisingly good concealing genjutsu considering the condition she was in. His first thought had been that she had picked a foolish place to drink and the second thought had been _oh shit_. She was pretty enough, Jiraiya supposed, in the girl next door kind of way. Her hair had been dark in the shadows of the alley, her lips red with her own blood and her skin white like a woman's who is suffering from severe blood loss. When he had been frozen in indecision just for a second she had opened her eyes and _seen_ Jiraiya.

That was fairly shocking. Jiraiya took no pains to deny his many talents – what good was sundial in a shade? But one of those talents was to hide his talents, to become one with the shade and become as inconsequential as a mass-produced clay pot.

Jiraiya never used henge or genjutsu when infiltrating a hidden village if he could avoid it, never. Only Konoha had Byakugan, unless those unconfirmed rumours about one jounin in Kiri turned out to be true, but there were always chakra techniques, jutsu, hidden seals in all important buildings; all ninja had good eyes and a serving of professional paranoia or they were soon dead ninja. He would shed muscle mass with a pill, cut and dye his hair and use make-up to carefully cover his tattoos – and Tsunade-hime said that the time spent in geisha houses was time wasted! It wasn't uncomplicated to make convincing physical changes, but those couldn't be seen through. But the girl hadn't looked at his hair, his skin, his bulk or even the attitude he had projected. She had looked at the bone structure of his face and her eyes had brightened with recognition.

Jiraiya had been about to finish her when she had whispered: "Jiraiya of the Sannin. Good... tell Deidara... or he'll... bad things..." And promptly fainted after.

He had taken her with him and dressed her wounds just for that. Jiraiya had good instincts, but it didn't take a spy genius to figure out that when a woman wearing an Iwa headband was found bleeding in an alley, _happy_ to see a Sannin in her village and rambling about the much-speculated Tsuchikage candidate, something was afoot. If only she would wake up so he could get to asking questions; she had barely twitched in over twenty hours.

"Don't you think it's time to wake up, lady?" Jiraiya asked her. This was when the sky itself seemed to explode.

The boom was huge, like a whole mountain had broken in half. It was more than mere noise: the floor trembled under Jiraiya's feet and he could feel the sound at the roots of his teeth. The echoes bounded off the mountain faces and stone walls outside like cracks of thunder. Jiraiya was out of the window and up on the roof in under three seconds and the sight that lit the Iwagakure night made his jaw drop.

The Tsuchikage's tower had been covered in a cloud of fine stone dust, lit reddish and burnt yellow by the flames consuming it.

* * *

AN: When it's over it's... not over? Deidara strikes!


	16. Chapter 16

**Where Tsubaki Totally Trolls the Konoha Rumour Mill and Kabuto Makes a Diagnosis**

* * *

**076. Who?**

The Tea Country was a remote place, but Kiri was aware of Satou Naruto due to Taiki's report now and Orochimaru had lifted his face from his experiments long enough to notice that Kabuto and Sasuke were still missing, think about the implications for a second and turn the air blue for half an hour without the aid of a single jutsu. Orochimaru knew about Uzumaki and jinchuuriki, Kiri knew about the cult and the truth was that neither place was spy-free. Iwa had several infiltrators in Kiri while Taki and Kumo had managed each to insert a man in Oto - not the same man, hilarious though that might have been - and Konoha along with Suna had spies in Kiri, Iwa and Kumo respectively and now a lot of important people were asking questions.

Who was Satou Naruto?

In Konoha the intelligence people were banging their heads against their desks and wondering just _how_ they were supposed to explain this to their superiors. In Suna the intelligence people were in a tizzy because of the Kazekage's lackadaisical attitude towards whole thing. Just what was he thinking? (And what were these people thinking, calling jinchuuriki SAINTS? Maybe it said something about Naruto that in Konoha _that_ didn't enter the consideration at this point.)

When the word reached Princess Kazahana Koyuki of the Snow Country she wondered a bit about the surname before concluding that that giving a false name was a ninja thing, that Naruto wasn't that common a name and given the messianic tendencies, what were the chances? There wasn't a pre-existing form for congratulating a person for founding a cult so she got to create one. The people of the Wave Country had no idea what jinchuuriki meant, but it was just like Naruto to protect the world so that was obviously him.

And of course other people heard as well. Two of them were of Konoha and officially dead, one of Konoha and only officially a traitor. The orphans of the Rain That Cries with Sorrow and the rest of them heard of the man who said the jinchuuriki were saints, heroes, to be revered. They heard the name Naruto and most of them weren't fooled by Satou for a minute. The rest of them would all ask the same question, some befuddled, some amused, some pitying and some just plain scared. The last mentioned were maybe the wisest.

Just _who_ was Satou Naruto? Those who knew the name asked the same, but for them "who" took a bit different connotation.

**077. What?**

The day after the day after, like Naruto counted from the return to the village, Tsubaki had been let out of the Uchiha Compound and she was on her way to fulfill a promise. Heads turned after her on the streets and conversations stilled, but now the air was speculating instead of accusing, curious rather than judging. Tsubaki didn't need to hear the half-stiffled whispers "Danzo" and "Uchiha" and "Uzumaki" to know what had eclipsed her former relationship with Mizuki in the Konoha rumour mill.

The truth was that all ninja were irrepressible rumour-mongers. Intelligence was a matter of life and death and petty gossip made for good dry practice, nosiness was the other occupational disease spread by whisper infection and curiosity killed the cat because shinobi didn't like competition. So while Tsunade had managed to suppress the exact details of Sasuke's return, Danzo's death and Naruto and Kabuto's role in the thing, it had been beyond even her power to keep the villagers from finding out that the top tier of the village had been upturned and shaken to see what would fall off and now everyone wanted to find out the _what_. What had Danzo done that Hokage-sama had dueled him in her own office? (It hadn't been Hokage-sama, some whispered, but Uzumaki, no, Yakushi! Yea, right, said others, like that weakling could win that fight, and like the traitor would even if he could.) And what had Uzumaki done to get Uchiha back, what was he even doing back in the village without Jiraiya and what was Yakushi doing back at all, what, what, _what?_

It was very satisfying, she found out, to have the answers everyone wanted and a good excuse - a legitimate order - to not tell anyone. Tsubaki preened under the stares like a cat that had gotten the cream, ambushed the canary and raided the pantry for the good measure.

Every stool in Ichiraku was taken when Tsubaki arrived to the small restaurant, but then, she hadn't come to eat. The shinobi eating there weren't quite clumsy enough to fall silent or turn to stare when she pushed the cloth with the kanji for raku to the side and slipped in, but the men were following her from the corner of their eye. Ichiraku Teuchi stood with his back turned towards her, cooking something that smelled like ginger and prawns and brought water to Tsubaki's tongue, making her reconsider staying for a meal even though it wasn't ten o'clock yet. Ayame, busy boiling eggs with one hand and frying pork with another, noticed her and gave her a smile.

"Please wait just a moment, honorable customer," she chirped and pulled the pan from fire.

"No hurry, I'm just here to have a word with your father," she said, causing Teuchi to look over his shoulder. His brow was burrowed when he no doubt tried to remember when he had met her and why she would want to talk with him.

"Good morning, Tsubaki," the man sitting next to her greeted her. He was a jounin she knew by name, though they hadn't ever been precisely close friends.

"Good morning, Yoshikazu," she said and smiled like the sun. It was already promising to be a very beautiful day.

"I haven't seen you for a while, Tsubaki. I take it you just returned from a mission?" he fished. _You wouldn't see me before I left_, Tsubaki thought, but strangely the thought brought her no pain. There was only gleeful anticipation.

Oh dear. Naruto really was contagious.

"Well, yes, my last mission was to the Tea Country; as on-field support to Naruto, you see," she drew the moment of revelation on, pausing for a second to have everyone's full, undivided attention. "I joined a cult there."

"A... cult?" Yoshikazu repeated weakly and more than one man had to collect their jaw from the table. Tsubaki copied one of Kabuto's more beatific smiles the best she could.

"Yes, we believe in purifying ourselves by obeying the Light of Truth so that we have sincere love for our brothers and sisters, the power of the human sacrifice that protects us from the evil of the biju, world peace through superior firepower and biodynamic cultivation. Would you like to have a pamphlet?"

Tsubaki was a good kunoichi and well used to hiding her inner thought. When she looked at the bulging gold fish eyes turned to her it took all she had to not laugh out loud. She could swear her ribs were cracking, keeping it all in.

This was when Teuchi brought two bowls to the counter and turned towards Tsubaki. He raised one eyebrow in a way that told Tsubaki he didn't believe a word she had just said. Well, those were more like half-truths. Tsubaki wasn't in it for the faith, but she _was _in - for the moral support. She owed Naruto that much at least.

"So what it was you wanted to talk about, Tsubaki-san?" Teuchi asked.

"I came to offer you my most sincere thanks," Tsubaki said and then she struck quickly as a snake. She grabbed Teuchi's collar, pulled his upper body over the counter and crushed her mouth against his. Teuchi made a small, surprised noise and she took the opportunity to slip him some tongue; no sense not going all the way out after all. He tasted like miso and Tsubaki nibbled on his lower lip a final time before releasing him. "Thank you for being there for Naruto," she breathed in his ear before straightening. The silence that had fallen could have been cut with a kunai.

"Have a nice day!" she wished the dumb-struck audience and waved a little before traipsing away.

"DAD, HAVE YOU JOINED A CULT?" Ayame's voice drifted out after her and now Tsubaki snickered out loud.

**078. Where?**

These things always took their time, of course, but the initial investigation suggested that Mitokado Homura and Utatane Koharu had been beguiled by Danzo rather than collaborators; a fact which made Tsunade very happy. The years had disillusioned them, naturally, but the trust in Danzo and his words and opinion they couldn't fully explain or rationalize when asked some pointed questions had been encouraging Just replacing Danzo was going to be a nightmare – the man had been traitorous, but he had been a bureaucratically inclined, hard-working traitor – and being forced to fully sideline the two elders would make matters that much worse.

She would get a new council after the rest of the affairs were in order, of course. No matter how much Homura and Koharu were innocent and used, keeping them would be to make herself appear weak, and while being forced to retire was a shame, they were old and tired, forced to hold their office for far longer than they should have because the next generation had lacked clearly fitting replacements It was like with Sandaime, someone who really was too old for the job holding it. He had been physically strong, but more than raw strength was called in the position. Sandaime had been tired. Now he had died in the office he had already once retired from.

At least Homura and Koharu would get to die in peace. But while this issue was now out of the way, it still left several more to consider, one of them what to do with the Root's remains. There just wasn't place in the system where the kids could be put.

Only two men had been taken alive in a fight and they were now entertained by the Torture and Interrogation, gagged so they couldn't bite their tongue, their chakra sealed so they couldn't perform a suicide jutsu and under constant suicide watch. What would be done with them was clear. Sai was the only actual defector and his position was clear enough as well, but the rescued children were a bit of a dilemma. They needed to be de-programmed and integrated into the proper Konoha, which was proving to be a particularly complicated matter.

"They need a proper, home-like environment to acclimate to Konoha," Hiashi declared.

"But not by the Hyuuga. You are practically a cult," Tsume complained and Hishi's face reddened.

"At least we don't raise our children in a kennel," he sniped back, to which Tsume barked that at least the Inuzuka didn't brand their own like cattle. Really, some days Tsunade hoped that the Assembly had one, communal neck she could wrap her hand around. After this someone had proposed Naruto and the idea had gotten some reserved support, much to Tsunade's surprise and delight. But the truth was that Konoha valued results and turning a clearly psychotic jinchuuriki around in mid-invasion had been something that had knocked several socks off even before the boy had proceeded to drag Tsunade back and now do the same to Sasuke and Kabuto. No-one really understood Naruto's method, but no-one questioned it's effectiveness either.

What wound up bombing that idea was that Naruto was to leave Konoha with Jiraiya again right when Tsunade's perverted teammate could be reached. That kind of entourage just wouldn't be practical.

"What about Umino Iruka then? Isn't he the one practically raised Naruto?" Shikaku asked. "The job is too big for one person, but we could assign him some help." This made Tsunade immediately think of Tsubaki and that... was just perfect. So Iruka didn't really deserve the headache, but then, he seemed to like dealing with pre-genin hellions, considering he had refused _two_ jounin evaluations. They needed a place, now they had two people. That was good enough in her books.

**079. When?**

Hyuuga Hinata was twiddling her thumbs as she gazed upon the old Uchiha Compound. Somewhere there was her Naruto-kun, back in the village as the hero who had brought Sasuke back and done some other things she had heard her father alluding to when he had talked to her grand-aunt back in home. She was so happy people could finally see him like she did; her heart filled with warm bubbles that felt so real she would have feared anyone of her blood could see them, could see her happiness should they simply activate their Byakugan. It would be perfect if she only dared to go into the compound.

Well, technically the compound hadn't been declared off-limits, now had it? And she only wanted to learn when she might go there with permission, when she might meet Naruto and how long it would be until he had to leave the village again. Maybe it would be all right if she just quickly snuck in and then out again? Just to get the time table?

"Byakugan," she whispered and allowed her chakra to flow through familiar pathways. There were four shapes of adult men and a woman, glowing bright blue with strong reserves and well-exercised pathways, almost illuminated silhouettes seen through the negative of the many walls and trees of the compound, but two of them were on the other side of the compound.

Of course, that was where Naruto was as well, along with Sakura, Sasuke, a female jounin she knew by looks though not by name and an unknown man. Naruto was there, his unique chakra tinted with deep-buried red so it glowed purple, bubbling like the water of a hot spring, _radiating_ mental energy like a campfire radiated heat in the cold of a winter night. This was why he was so beautiful to her, not because of his golden hair and blue eyes and happy, sunny tan, though that was of course nice as well. It was how he was that much more open than anyone else, how she could see more of him than of other people, right into the [colour-of-taste-of-burnt-orange-on-ginger] mental component of his chakra because it was just that bright. And open; high-level jounin hid what they were, but Naruto was open and he was beautiful like a clear jewel that had been cut and polished a bit amateurishly, but that was obviously flawless on the inside. Knowing what he held within and still remained like that simply took Hinata's breath away. She would have to go there and speak in front of everyone, but hadn't she promised to herself she would be braver, just a little braver every day until she was ready. Maybe that day had come now.

She walked across the street and slipped through a small opening in the hedgerow between two houses, intent on making her way to Naruto. She had seen two of the Anbu watching two separate people, one a young boy, stronger than Hinata was, who was sitting under a tree and drawing something. The other was a taller man who looked familiar, though he was a bit too far for Hinata to say who he was, but the way he managed to not give away that much of his chakra despite the tenketsu being clearly visible suggested a high-level shinobi. Even knowing this she was startled when he stood before her in a flash of chakra and green leaves, his stance much too easy-going for the quick reaction.

"I ca-came to… time table-eep!" It was Yakushi Kabuto! He had been Orochimaru's spy, what was he doing back in Konoha, in the same place with Naruto?

Oh. Oh!

"Ah, Hinata-san. What might your business here be?" he asked. "With your Byakugan activated, no less?" he inquired gently. Hinata felt flush rising to his cheeks as she deactivated her bloodline hastily.

"I came, I me-mean, um…" damn her traitorous tongue for betraying her like this! The Anbu she had seen had been hiding behind a corner when she last saw him, watching the meeting surreptitiously.

"Ah, I see, Hinata-san. I am a medic-nin and I see you suffer from amor hereos. Physicians of the Sage of Six Paths' time thought of it as a kind of melancholy, brought about by the humorous infection of the middle ventricle of the brain," Kabuto said, his voice smooth and mild like milk. It was a side-effect of the Byakugan that the Hyuuga tended to taste what they saw and see sounds; synesthesia was the medical term. Kabuto's voice was white with almost pearl-like sheen of steel gray around the edges.

But why hadn't anyone noticed she was sick? That kind of things showed in the chakra.

"The infection is caused by thinking continually on the image of the loved one," Kabuto continued and Hinata's voice was suffocated deep in her throat. The world dimmed in the corners of her vision.

"Hey! I, I mean," she managed to breathe.

"This will reach the point where it becomes almost impossible to think of anything else," the silver-haired man continued mercilessly and Hinata fainted dead away.

**080. Why?**

Umino Iruka was humming happily as he penned the requisition forms for a field trip outside of Konoha his class would take two weeks from now. The forms only needed to be returned three days before the day, but considering the extra paperwork the whole village administration was bound to struggle with and the backlog it was going to create, better safe than sorry. Survival exercises were something that couldn't be substituted with in-village training.

That brought back memories of Naruto. When he had taken that class camping in the forest for a week Naruto had proven that while he might struggle in many subjects, survival wasn't one of them. He had made a fine shelter from fallen branches, moss and vines and when the children were told to catch fish for lunch, Naruto had waded into the river and snatched fish off it bare-handed. Other students had tried to copy the boy, but only gotten wet in the process and Iruka thought it had done very good for Naruto's self-esteem. And now his favourite student was back in the village! Iruka knew that teachers weren't supposed to have favourites, but he had long since concluded that since Naruto was everyone else's _un-favourite_, it was just fair that the boy had someone in his corner.

And now Naruto was back, with Sasuke no less! Iruka's grin widened, but a shadow followed the happiness when he remembered that he hadn't been allowed to meet Naruto yet. It wasn't simply Sasuke, no; elder Shimura Danzo had wound up dead – thrown off the Hokage's window! – and Naruto was somehow connected to this as well. But he didn't worry too much; Naruto was all right, Hatake Kakashi had confirmed that much. And he had an informant he was certain he could convince to talk to him: Tsubaki-chan. She was back in the village as well and even if she technically shouldn't speak to him, well, he was certain he could covertly guilt-trip her into spilling the beans by making careful allusions of friends standing by each other through thick and thin.

He was called "the nice one" in Konoha and that was true. That didn't mean he didn't know how to get what he wanted when the situation called for it.

"Back to the little hellions," Suzume-sensei groaned and stretched, popping her back in a way that sounded deliciously relieving. "Target practice for the next two hours. For you?"

They were sitting in the teacher's lounge, along with most of the Academy sensei – poor Hiroshi and Tsunayuki had to take the recess watch and no-one envied the two any, as that was almost more draining than two hours of mathematics. In the lounge there was at least sweet, sweet coffee, strong and black scorching hot. In the Academy coffee came in three descending stages: coffee, medical jutsu and paint remover. Iruka took a big gulp from his cup and relished in the revitalizing burn of it as it corroded his esophageal mucosa going down.

"Free period and after that taijutsu. After that…" he didn't have time to finish his sentence when the door to the lounge opened and Tsubaki-chan walked in. The first thing he noticed about her was that she looked a _lot_ better than she had when she left for that mission. The spring was back to her steps and the tightness around her eyes was gone now, the upwards curve of her lips replaced by a genuine smile. He had been right. Naruto was the best therapy and, despite his voracious appetite, much more affordable than the private sector.

(There was, of course, the public sector, but that was the T&I ninja moonlighting and even though everybody knew they were on their _customer's_ side in that setting…)

"It's nice to see you, Tsubaki-chan. How have you been?" he called out to her. It was impossible to not notice how his fellow teacher's cast marginally discreet glances at Tsubaki and the conversations they were carrying became distracted as they strained to hear this – and he would have been angry with them, well aware of how the rumours had gotten to her, except her smirk really, really reminded him of Naruto all of a sudden, Naruto just before a smoke bomb went off or the toilets flooded.

"I'm wonderful," she said and closed the distance between them until she stood practically on his toes. "And you are wonderful too."

She kissed him. It wasn't a sisterly peck to the cheek like those Iruka had previously gotten from her, nor was it the sweet, inquiring, chaste close-mouthed kiss he would have expected from her if he ever considered the possibility of Tsubaki proposing to him. It made his eyes slide close and even then red spots danced in the darkness before them, it made him dizzy, it stole his breath and made his fingertips tingle, it involved a lot of nipping and sucking and it was over much too soon. He only realized Tsubaki had pushed him backwards over his desk when he opened his eyes too look up her. Those red, red lips brushed against his ear…

"Thank you for being so good to Naruto. I wish I had been too." With these parting words Tsubaki took to the window. She was out of it before Iruka could even summon enough brain power to process her words, let alone get back up.

"Are you lovers, Iruka?" Suzume's voice reached an octave Iruka hadn't previously known it could. He blushed even redder than he already was, beet red, blood red, when he saw that every soul in the lounge was staring at him.

"Ah, no, she was… just happy? I did something for her?" he tried. The eyebrows raised in concert made it clear that the truth had failed to convince anyone.

"So why was she kissing you then? That didn't look like simple gratitude?" Shoichi drawled, winking at him. "Could it be just really good afterglow?"

"Please be your speculation to yourself, we are in school building," Iruka groused and pressed his face to his hands. He knew that it didn't much matter what he would say now, any comment could only make the matter worse because that hadn't been a thank-you kiss. And he would have bet a good amount of money that was precisely why Tsubaki-chan had done it.

There was a moment in most ninja's life – those who lived long enough in any rate – when they realized that it didn't and shouldn't matter what complete strangers thought of them because life was short and their kind lived hard and fast and probably wouldn't leave a very pretty body behind. What did it matter that some people thought Academy teachers weren't "real shinobi" if that was what you wanted to do with your life? So what if green spandex and the Flames of Youth made the passer-by cringe or –Iruka admitted this only _very_ reluctantly – reading porn in public was supposed to be mortifying. Sticks and stones could break the bones of someone really bad at dodging, but if you actually got your bones broken for a living, words suddenly seemed a lot less daunting. Naruto had learned this much sooner than anyone should and it seemed that he had taught the lesson to Tsubaki-chan who was now reveling in the novelty of the freedom it gave her. Good for her…

"Well, she was sent out to assist Naruto and they came back with Sasuke, and isn't Iruka practically Naruto's dad anyway? Maybe they conspired together to give her a chance to kill the bastard who turned Mizuki? Two bird with one stone and all."

"But didn't Kabuto come back to the village alive? Do you think Mizuki might have suffered a sad accident in the prison?"

His colleagues were going to try to hit the why of the Curious Case of the Sensei and the Hot Kiss for the next month at the very least and everyone was going to ask him questions when he had lesson plans to make or quizzes to grade. It was going to be a really long month.

* * *

AN: Jinchuuriki means power of human sacrifice, literally.

Amor hereos is a real medieval belief, found in Studies in the Age of Chaucer volume 3. It's a little anachronistic here because it's an _European_ medieval belief, but it was just a little too good bit for me to pass. Synesthesia is a real deal as far as modern medicine is considered.


	17. Chapter 17

**Where the Consequences Are Laid Out**

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**081. How?**

That evening saw Naruto happily bouncing up the stairs to Iruka's floor in the old apartment building. Tsunabe-baachan had finally let them out of quarantine and he had been already in the village for ages without seeing his old teacher, he didn't want Iruka-sensei to think he didn't respect him anymore now that Ero-sensei had taken over. Maybe Iruka-sensei didn't know the really cool stuff, but he had at least taught Naruto consistently seven hours a day and five days a week even when he had to chase Naruto down and drag him to the Academy in ropes. Not that Naruto had made him do that more often than once a year once he realized that Iruka-sensei really cared and it wasn't nice to evade him.

He paused a bit before knocking on the door, thinking that maybe he should have brought Sasuke with him because Iruka-sensei had to be worried for him. Iruka-sensei was like that, he worried for everyone and especially everybody he had ever taught.

"When you leave the Academy your ass belong to the village, but your well being is Iruka-sensei's," he had once tried to explain it to Sakura-chan.

"Don't say such crude things!" Sakura-chan had shouted and thrown him with a sandal. They had this problem where they spoke with each other and had two different conversations. But maybe Sakura-chan had understood after all because every time she sprained a wrist or an ankle in a school spar she went to Iruka-sensei after the practice without complaining about being all right at all and allowed herself be properly fussed over. That girl called Ami or something had called Sakura-chan a teacher's pet, but then Ino had kicked Ami's ass to the curb in the next spar they had and Ami got fussed at instead.

"Iruka-sensei, I'm back!" he shouted and knocked to the door. He actually had a key as well – Iruka-sensei had given it to him after the seventeenth time he had tried to break in and got tangled in his rope traps instead – but he had also said that it was really impolite to just march into other people's homes without knocking if they were inside.

Naruto had tried to break in to prank his sensei and he had practically squirmed with shame when Iruka-sensei had smiled and told him he trusted Naruto with the key. He had never pranked Iruka-sensei in his home after all, but kept that stuff in school… Wait a minute!

"Naruto, it's good to see you too, but you don't need to drop my paintings off the wall when you knock," Iruka-sensei chided him gently as he opened the door. He looked a bit harried for some reason; not Naruto-harried, that look was closer to exasperated and fond that strained

"Iruka-sensei, what's happened to you?" Naruto asked and then shook his head. "Wait, that wasn't what I was going to ask. I mean, I want that answer too, but when you gave me the key it was a bringing-me-up-right thing, wasn't it?" He punctuated his outrage with a poke to Iruka-sensei's chest.

"It took you this long to notice…You came here to ask me that?" Iruka-sensei blinked.

"No, that wasn't why I came either. Can we go to Ichiraku together? I have a lot to tell you." He made his best puppy dog eyes at his sensei.

"Was this really the reason or will you remember something else you came here for?" Iruka-sensei asked him and Naruto pouted.

"Now you are teasing me! It isn't fair," he complained. "I can't help myself, you know. But I haven't pranked anyone since Jiraiya-sensei left me in Makimura. I have been a responsible adult forever and a day."

"To be young enough for forever and a day to still happen," Iruka-sensei said inexplicably, but he ruffled Naruto's hair and Naruto hummed deep in his throat, his eyes closing. Iruka-sensei had looked proud! That made Naruto want to squirm out of his skin out of sheer joy, in a good kind of way if that made any sense.

"To answer your questions in order of inquiry, I have suddenly become a gossip item, yes, I tricked you into behaving more maturely by showing you I trust you; that's called bringing you up. And we can go to Ichiraku, but maybe we should talk here inside instead. Much of what has happened is sensitive information after all." Now Iruka-sensei gave him a stern look as something occurred to him. "I have the clearance to know about _everything_ you are going to tell me, right? Even about Danzo falling out of Hokage's window?" Naruto rubbed his head and smiled a little.

"Eh heh, I kind of haven't asked? Wait a second, Danzo's fallen out of a window… Who is Danzo?" he tried, hurriedly, since he probably shouldn't tell Kabuto and Sai's secrets. He was going to tell all his own, but Kabuto and Sai should decide about that – he _so_ could be mature. And Iruka shook his head, snorting.

"Only you, Naruto, only you. And I would like to know _how_ this all came to be. I have questions as well and a lot more than you, I presume." But he ruffled Naruto's hair again and all was well in the world.

**082. If **

At first Kabuto was surprised when the Konoha Assembly informed him that after the initial debriefing was over – a polite way to call comparatively polite interrogation – he was to follow Naruto back to Makimura. He would have thought that he would be kept under very, very close watch for the foreseeable future, the next ten years or so, and this made him very suspicious of the Assembly's motives. He knew that however much faith Godaime Hokage might have in Naruto, the rest of the lot was as trusting as ocean was dry as allowing him out of the village mere days after the fact screamed set-up loud and clear. These days his mind was collected and uncluttered, undisturbed like a frozen lake, as clear and hard and cold as ice. He was already running calculations in his mind.

"We expect you will toe the line _very carefully_, Yakushi-san," Yamanaka Inoichi spoke to him. Kabuto took care to keep his body language submissive, respectful and non-threatening. He smiled what he called his omote-smile. Like the noh masks, it was properly upwards curled and blank, allowing the watcher to read and think what they would, revealing nothing.

"Do not betray us."

Oh. So this was the gambit they played. Senju Tsunade's face was pleasant and inscrutable.

"I will not make you regret your mercy," he said in the comfortable certainty that the powerful men and women in front of him were already regretting it. Of course they weren't simply letting him out of the village with Naruto-sama and whichever superior officer had the orders to visibly accompany him to Makimura; not Tsubaki, most likely, given her demonstrated indulgence of Naruto-sama. An Anbu team or maybe several would follow them surreptitiously to see if Kabuto would hang himself with the rope he was given. He was very certain every soul in the Council Chamber was praying to whatever higher power they might believe in that he would.

They had all known Shimura Danzo after all. Clearly not as well as they had believed, but enough to be uncomfortably aware that the man had to have been in possession of several skeletons in the clan closets – and Kabuto had already demonstrated how much of Danzo's affairs he knew. Naruto-sama would not suffer for Kabuto to be killed or imprisoned and Tsunade would not suffer for Naruto-sama to be betrayed so this was the best they could do: to give him a chance to desert, to meet foreign agents in secrets, to do anything that could be used as an excuse. Inuzuku Tsume's face was stormy and her eyes glittered like sharp shards of flint and Kabuto knew she had been against this, that she was much too straight-forward and honest to keep any dark secrets. Scarred Nara Shikaku appeared more annoyed than anything and Kabuto wondered if his disinclination to under the table deals was because it would have been illogical to indulge in them or simply a matter of laziness. But the rest of them, they all had faces like windows with the shutters closed on the inside.

What shameful secrets could Yakushi Kabuto reveal? What if, given how thorough and eager he had been to part with his information so far, he chose to do so in the in-depth interrogation? What measures would official Konoha be forced to take?

Or what if, gods forbid, he should talk to Naruto? The young jinchuuriki had already forced the Hokage to confront a situation that had left the village's unofficial, but also undisputed second most powerful man dead in its wake.

"I will die Naruto-sama's," he said and it was as much a threat as it was a promise. Konoha hadn't been very kind to Naruto-sama so far and best indication of future behavior was the past behavior. If Naruto-sama ever needed an edge, some weapon to use against those he wasn't allowed to raise his hand against?

Steel broke and chakra ran low, but good blackmail was forever.

**083. And**

Naruto was walking to the gates of Konoha with his team. He was so happy Sakura-chan had decided to come see him off and it was kind of nice for Sasuke to have joined them too, he guessed. He wasn't really sure what was up with Kakashi-sensei since he was actually on time for the first time since Naruto first met him, but at least he was still walking with that perverted book stuck to his face. If he had left _that_ behind Naruto would have suspected a new invasion or something. Kakashi-sensei without porn was like Tsunade-baachan winning at gambling.

"I'm happy they let Kabuto come, but why can't they send Tsubaki-chan too? She's great," he asked, not from anyone particular. Tsunade-baachan had said that she was needed because the Assembly hoped she had learned some tricks from him and that was kind of awesome, but what was he going to do without her? Tsubaki-chan was kind of like Sakura-chan's older sister who mothered the team and was always there when someone needed her. And maybe, just maybe, Naruto had wondered at times if having Tsubaki-chan was like a having a big sister of his own, or mother, except she was too much of a friend to be mother. It was difficult to put in words what Tsubaki-chan was to him, but leaving her behind was going to suck.

"Take care of yourself and take care of Kabuto," Sakura-chan admonished him. "He promised to teach me some tricks." This made Kakashi-sensei stumble for some reason, but Naruto nodded and promised that yes, he would be fine and so would Kabuto. He never let his friends down.

"And you would better not make Sakura-chan cry again," he told Sasuke and flicked a finger at his nose. Sasuke's face was a picture of pure disbelief, but there was something else there too, something that Naruto had already learned to label as Itachi. He almost apologized, but then Sasuke snorted and called him an idiot and all was right in the world again.

The clouds were hanging low, heavy and wet above Konoha as they reached the gates. Kabuto was waiting there and Tsubaki-chan and Taiki stood by him, holding a folded red umbrella under her arm. For a moment Naruto hoped that she was coming as well, but she didn't have any bags with her at all; still, it was good enough that she had come to see him off as well. Naruto bounced to her and grinned.

"Try to look after Sasuke too, okay? He really needs it," he confided in her. Sasuke threw a punch at him, but he dodged it easily, and it wasn't like Sasuke was really all that angry since he didn't punch again.

"I will see what I can do. Even though my list of people to look after..." she muttered under her breath, but brightened then. "Iruka asked me to tell you he's sorry he couldn't come, but he has a class in session right now."

It was one of the good good-byes. The last time Naruto had left Konoha he had grinned and borne it, but the truth was that Sasuke had run off to join Orochimaru and he had been unable to fulfill his promise to Sakura-chan and while he hadn't given up at all, he had felt like he was trying to pull the weight of all Konoha up a hill, in rain and knee-high mud. He had been happy and optimistic because if he hadn't been so he would have cried. Now Sasuke was back in Konoha and Sakura-chan's pretty smiles were even prettier because they were a hundred percent genuine, Danzo had been toppled and Kabuto was back and he was leaving the whole circus in good hands. Of course it was too good to just remain so.

There was always an _and_ in Naruto's life. Some people insisted that there was a _but_ in theirs. My job is fun and interesting, _but_ the pay is small. She's really fun and pretty, _but_ her parents are terrifying and have a lot of exploding tags. Naruto didn't believe in that sort of wimpy defeatist attitude and so he had ands instead. Sasuke ran away _and_ I'm going to train with Jiraiya-sensei (it can be fixed.) Suna attacked us and I kicked Gaara's ass (now he's better and I don't have to wonder if I could have ended up like that.) He was a great believer in ands.

"Greetings, my Eternal Rival! It is my honour to inform you that I have been chosen to accompany your Most Youthful Protege to the Youthful Town of Makimura and I promise to do my Absolute Best to Protect him from All the Evils in the World!" Naruto froze and turned to face Maito Gai in his green spandex glory, followed by Rock Lee who made a Good Guy Pose and joined his sensei's declarations of Protection and Eternal Friendly Rivalry, long-suffering Tenten and even more long-suffering Neji. So... so he was going to travel with the Youthful Duo and he was going to return to Makimura. And surely Miwa-chan could bowl even them over with her ardent momentum.

_And_ then it started to rain.

**084. He**

It was Doihara Taiki's fourth day in Konohagakure and he had a theory about his new compatriots. He called it the conservation of shinobi sanity; the more there were shinobi, the less there was sanity per person. This alone wasn't anything that hadn't applied in Kirigakure as well – though there the crazy had been of more bloody quality – but he had then added a sub-clause about the effects of active engineering for ideology's sake versus passive acceptance because the Senju apparently used to have pretty damn odd sense of humour.

In other words: just _how_ we lost the last (three) war(s) to _these_?

(Of course, for him "these" and "us" had switched now, or rather, he had switched. He would better remember to think of himself as Konohan, but still…)

As a new defector he had been assigned in-village low security courier duty for the next six months. Carrying a few scrolls per day was just a formality that justified his wages during the parole when the village couldn't send him out and couldn't trust him with any sensitive information, patients or training impressionable children and as a result he was left with a lot of time to train and make friends with his former enemies – in theory at least. As it turned out, the latter was much less time-consuming than he had assumed.

"Hey, you there! The dry one with the long nose!" a voice sounded a little ways from behind him. Taiki turned around, swallowing the flash of indignant irritation at the comment about his nose; so it was just a bit long, it wasn't a crane's beak or anything. But he was new in the village and he had already resigned himself to some hazing now that Naruto had left the village.

It was raining again and the woman walking briskly towards him was holding up an orange umbrella. She wore her middle-length hair up on a ponytail and her coat open and under that coat… Taiki snapped his gaze up and hoped his smile wasn't as frozen as it felt. He had never met her before, but he recognized her from the picture in the Kiri Bingo Book. She was Mitarashi Anko, one-time student of the infamous Orochimaru of the Sannin. He had no need to summon the Notes and Recommendations section of her page to his mind – it came easily, at its own behest.

_When offended, Mitarashi exhibits signs of a mixed state, a condition during which symptoms of mania and depression occur simultaneously, manifesting in her case as predisposition to frustration and fits of rage_.

"How can I help you?" he asked with even voice and distributed his weight in a little more advantageous way. He wondered if she wore her coat open like that to get an excuse to attack people.

"That was your last scroll today, wasn't it? Great, I'm Mitarashi Anko and I'm taking you to the Ninja Mouse for the traditional Meet, Greet and Make Sure We Never Killed One Another's Loved Ones session, come." She didn't give Taiki time to figure out what that meant or ask if she had been stalking him, but grabbed his left arm and started dragging him down the street.

The Ninja Mouse turned out to be a small and apparently very popular bar. The tables, Taiki notes, were all taken and the seating by the bar were all taken as well, but Mitarashi didn't let this stop herself. She simply strong-armed her way into a table with three other occupants. A man with green bandana tied around his head and a senbon in his mouth nodded to them. The other man, a much harsher-looking individual with bandana and an eye patch barely spared Taiki a glance and continued talking to a beautiful but stern-looking woman whose hair was a spectacular shade of dark that bordered on purple.

"Hey guys, this is Doihara Taiki, Taiki, these are Shiranui Genma, Akame Iwana and Uzuki Yuugao," Anko made the introductions.

"It's nice to meet you," the one named Shiranui Genma said politely and Taiki greeted him in return.

"Why don't you just electrocute the pests?" Yuugao asked Iwana.

"And let them die and rot inside the air ducts? Have you got any idea how bad the smell would get?" Iwana snapped, but Yuugao didn't seem taken aback at all.

"The archives appear to have a bit of a pest problem. This rain has driven snakes inside and they have taken refuge in the ducts," Genma explained the situation amicably with a stage whisper while Anko hollered for sake. This was when a dark-haired young man entered the bar with a loud bang as the door hit the wall, making several people jump and turn to look, their hands not-so-discreetly at their weapons. The man paid the turn he had caused no mind, but marched to their table.

"Anko, I need you at the T&I," the man said without preamble. This made Anko visibly perk up.

"Great, can I be the meaner one? What's my story?" she asked and stood up, stretching her back in a _very_ distracting way.

"What you mean, your story?" The so far nameless man appeared confused. Taiki had always been the silent watcher at the edges of any crowd he had been part of and he felt sliding into that comfortable niche again. It almost made this situation seem homely.

"I need a story so I can be properly menacing. Remember that course we were given about method acting? Did he kill my little brother, for example?" she asked.

"You actually took that drivel seriously?" Genma asked and Anko made a rude gesture to him.

"You have a little brother?" the T&I shinobi asked, not looking convinced.

"I can't take mongoose in; they don't have the security clearance," Iwana inexplicably stated. It took Taiki a second to realize he was engaged in another conversation entirely.

"I must have had one if that bastard killed him," Anko snarled, honest-to-gods snarled.

"Neither have the snakes," Yuugao pointed out with a very reasonable voice.

So this was the village that had bred and raised Uzumaki Naruto. It made a lot more sense than Taiki had thought possible just a day ago. Yet somehow this wasn't an entirely bad thing. He had already learned how too much normalcy could kill the soul.

**085. She**

It was the first day after Naruto had departed from the village with Maito Guy and his team. Deciding who would go with him had been a difficult decision to make, Tsubaki knew. Hatake Kakashi would have been the natural choice, being Naruto's jounin sensei, but he was also Sasuke's sensei and the Uchiha needed him inarguably more at the moment.

Due to the inherent risks of Naruto being a genin jinchuuriki out of his village, the unfortunately widespread reputation he had recently gained and no-one trusting Kabuto as far as they could throw the Hokage Monument, the council had wanted to appoint one of the strongest jounin to watch Naruto's back. Tsubaki was more than a little surprised that they let Naruto return to Makimura at all, but undoubtedly they had their reasons – or Tsunade-sama had finally had it with the bickering and locked the lot of them into a closet with Naruto for an hour.

That would explain it as well. Naruto's charisma approached reality-warping on occasion.

The first candidate had been Sarutobi Asuma, but Tsunade-sama had vetoed that, explaining that the man was needed in Konoha to take over some of Danzo's previos duties. Anko had been proposed and the proposal hastily retracted after the person mentioning her had some time to think things through. Anko and Kabuto in the same team? Gods forbid how that might have ended, two of Orochimaru's former students in the same team and backing up Naruto. Kurenai's name had been mentioned as well, but in the end Hyuuga Hiashi didn't want to lay his precious, delicate daughter open to Kabuto's influence, leaving Maito Gai the one appointed. Apparently Neji was much sturdier than Hinata.

Tsubaki would have pitied Naruto, but she pitied herself enough she wasn't certain which of them had it worse at the moment. She watched the children standing in parade rest in the middle of the training field. They all still wore similar clothes, but she and Iruka-sensei had purchased a few different accessories, bandannas and legwarmers and such, to give the children a taste of individuality. The children still didn't seem to know what to think of that. They were difficult to read in general, but if she had to make a guess, she would have called their current mood entirely unapologetic. The first of the day's exercise had been to walk them here through the village, at walking speed, to see how they would interact with normal people.

At first they hadn't spoken with anyone at all, hadn't looked anyone into the eye and greeted, touched, expressed any kind of curiosity. Then Iruka-sensei had told them the purpose of the exercise was to learn human interaction.

"Now, what have we learned from today's experience? Yuki-chan?" She had been the one to name her. Roughly half of the children had lacked even names prior to being liberated. Naruto had told her how Danzo had died and it was her opinion it had been entirely too easy. It was enough to make her forgive the children, really, but still.

_A cute, black-haired girl child walking up to an old woman standing in front of a grocery stand, feeling the tomatoes. A cute, innocent-looking girl with hidden weapons walking up to an old woman walking down the street._

"_Tomatoes are like people; they shouldn't bruise too easily."_

"_Good day, ma'am. I hope you are feeling well today. __Old people die ... and you don't look very good"_

Yuki-chan tilted her head with a movement more like a snake's than a bird's. She still made it look adorable.

"People don't appreciate honesty or unasked opinions," she said eventually. Butter wouldn't have melted in her mouth.

"And how about you, Tamaki-kun?" Iruka-sensei asked with a voice that completely by-passed the part of Tsubaki's mind where thought and deliberation dwelt and struct at the primal, instinctive obedience instead. She found herself standing in parade rest and blinked in shock.

"A tap on superior officer's shoulder is not an attack and even if it was, he can defend himself from his students' civilian parents," the boy with red bracers whom Iruka had named parroted meekly.

"This is going to be a long year, Tsubaki-sensei. Of evening classes, no less," Iruka-sensei muttered and Tsubaki winced as she remembered that he still had to teach his regular student as well. She thought that until everything was over she was going to either fall into a bed with him – bonding over shared trauma and life-threatening situations – or kill him to end his misery. The latter might have been more merciful, but she wasn't _that_ merciful kind of girl. And that teacher voice of his was really unfairly hot.


	18. Chapter 18

**Where Gai is Clever, but Kabuto is Even Sneakier and Miwa is Miwa**

This chapter has betaed by **BiblioMatsuri**.

* * *

**086. Choices**

Neji watched Naruto's back as they walked down the muddy road towards a coast city named Migiwa where they would take boat to some Tea Country town called Makimura. The still orange-clad genin didn't walk as much as he bounced, though, and the red umbrella made that look more than a little silly. He was flitting from Kabuto to Tenten and back again, but very conspicuously steering clear from Gai-sensei and Lee. He chattered about everything and nothing, Sasuke and Sakura and Sai, ramen and Iruka-sensei and his friends in Makimura, but never in depth. Despite the heavy rain, he was almost offensively cheery. Neji watched his back and wondered where his seal was.

Of course he had figured it out. First there had been Naruto's words when they faced off in the finals about the chuunin position and Hinata's honour. Neither had become a chuunin, but Naruto won the fight about Hinata and Neji was grateful, however bitter that pill had been to swallow. Naruto had hollered about how he knew what it was like to have a seal ruin your life and Neji hadn't believed him. Then the invasion had begun and the gigantic Toad Boss – Gamabunta himself! – had taken the shape of a nine-tailed fox. For a terrible second Neji had thought that the biju Yondaime had killed had somehow returned from Hell to kill them all, but his Byakugan had been active and he had seen the toad inside the not-quite-illusionary form of a fox. He had seen Naruto shrouded with a cloak of chakra that looked so poisonous just standing a fifty feet from him should make a man keel over, so corrosive it should burn through the toad under him through to the bones. When the fighting was over, he had started thinking about the way all the adults in the village used to avoid Naruto like he was a faulty exploding tag that just hadn't decided to go off yet, but never explained why. It turned out that, they hadn't been allowed to, under pain of death.

He had intended to have a conversation with Naruto, to ask him questions, though he still wasn't too certain what he wanted to ask. But first he had been dreadfully busy in the aftermath of the invasion and then Uchiha had defected, Naruto had left with Jiraiya-sama and that had been that. Until now. If he only could find a moment alone with Naruto; even in Makimura he appeared to be in quite high demand if even a fraction of his tales was true...

Kabuto was watching him. The bright orange rain poncho he was wearing over his clothes would have made anyone else look patently silly, but Neji had to consciously resist the instinct to activate his Byakugan, to expose himself like that. A true shinobi never let the enemy know they had unnerved him and Neji didn't believe for a second that Kabuto had defected back to them just like that.

He wanted to bristle like a cat and ask him, _What it is that you want?_ But, if growing up a Hyuuga had been good for anything, it had been good for his self-control.

"I must ask, Gai-san, why you and your protégé aren't wearing anything to cover you from the rain?" Kabuto asked, taking a few sidesteps and slowing his gait, leaving Naruto's side to approach Neji's sensei. As Naruto had just been talking to Kabuto, now he was left conveniently alone. Neji frowned.

Kabuto's words were true: the rest of them were rain ponchos, with the exception of Naruto who was the only one to tie a hand up with an umbrella instead, but Gai-sensei and Lee didn't have anything to protect them from the rain.

"The Flames of the Youth of our Springtime will keep us dry!" Gai-sensei declared and made the good guy pose, complete with Lee echoing his words and the genjutsu of a cotton candy bright rainbow appearing behind their backs.

"That is interesting. It can't be a chakra control technique because Lee can perform it as well, yet you still manipulate the pure physical energy in your bodies. It is rather similar to the opening of the Gates, isn't it? Though you are obviously the one who supplies the genjutsu."

Now Gai-sensei turned his face to Kabuto sharply and Neji was honestly surprised, as was Tenten if the way she had ceased to walk and just stared at her sensei and teammate like they had just grown wings, and Neji just knew. Kabuto didn't give him a knowing wink, didn't turn his polite, blank attention from Gai-sensei, but Neji knew this was an opening created intentionally. Now it was just up to him to take it – or not.

Neji still didn't trust Kabuto and the way the defector was playing Gai-sensei was frankly worrisome. While his sensei could be eccentric on occasion, on almost every occasion at that, no-one made a jounin by being a fool. He really should reveal the distraction to his teacher, especially since he didn't even understand why Kabuto thought it necessary. It wasn't as if he wouldn't be allowed to speak with Naruto otherwise. And maybe Kabuto had everyone fooled after all, even Naruto; he didn't doubt the genin's loyalty, but Naruto wasn't the most perceptive of people if the way he kept chasing after Haruno was any indication. On the other hand, the Uchiha was now back in Konoha and that kind of setback to Orochimaru's plans belied any deception. Unless Orochimaru had already gotten what he wanted from the Uchiha somehow...

This was the danger of being a shinobi: overanalyzing everything, looking underneath the underneath and coming up with all kinds of speculation based on sheer uncertainties. Now Naruto was turning towards the terse interrogation of motives that slid away from Kabuto's good-humoured deflection like water from a duck's back. He had to make the choice now.

"Naruto." Neji lengthened his stride and stood by him in a flurry of movement. "There are a few things I want to ask you."

In for a ryo, in for a hundred. Trust didn't come easily for him, but maybe it was time to start. And maybe Naruto was even aware of what Kabuto's severe damage was. He didn't need to activate his Byakugan to know that the infuriating medic was bound to look disgustingly smug now.

**087. Life**

Naruto was going to ask what Kabuto and Maito Gai were talking about – he wasn't sure he liked the tone of it – but then Neji was walking right there and he wanted to talk.

"Okay, what you wanted to know?" he asked, befuddled. He hadn't ever said anything to Neji outside the Chunin Exams and that hadn't been on good terms. But Neji had cleaned his act and stopped bothering Hinata, or so Ino had said told him before he left with Jiraiya, and everybody knew that if you stubbed your toe in your bathroom in the middle of the night she was going to ask the next day if you were all right. Since her dad was in the T&I that was probably one of those hereditary things.

"Why aren't you bothered by anything?" Neji asked abruptly. Then he snapped his mouth shut with an audible click of teeth.

"But I'm bothered by a lot of things," Naruto half-asked, frowning. Danzo was dead now, but he was still bothering Naruto from the grave, he had been just that creepy. Then there was Orochimaru and Akatsuki and the stupid fox in his gut. And on a non-hostile note, Miwa-chan and the stupid cult that had probably gotten completely out of hand while he was away. If he wasn't careful they were going to drag Gaara into it somehow too, and while it was kind of fun to imagine the look his face when someone tried to tell him that he was a living saint now, it really wouldn't be fair to dump this on him.

"I know you have Kyuubi sealed in you," Neji said.

Naruto hissed, startled. So maybe he hadn't been all that subtle, but no-one else had said anything so he had thought the whole giant fox thing had gone unnoticed, what with the invasion and all distracting people. Apparently not so.

"I swear I'm not going to..." he started to protest, but Neji didn't even appear to notice.

"So how come you aren't bitter at all? Or are you bitter? Are you just that good at faking it? Why Kabuto betrayed Orochimaru and do you trust him at all? And why is he running interference so we can talk without anyone listening in?" One question dropped after another like raindrops. Neji's mouth was a thin, pale line when he paused and his hands were balled into fists, his knuckles as pale as his lips.

"Kabuto's distracting them? That's just like him, you know. He's high-handed like that and sometimes needs really obvious things spelled out for him, like that betraying Konoha is going to make me seriously unhappy. And he does unnecessary things for me, but if it makes him happy and doesn't hurt anyone, I guess it's okay then. It's actually kind of scary how many totally oblivious people I know..." Gaara and Sai and, well, Sasuke wasn't oblivious. He had just been idiotic in his own way. "It's okay, he didn't betray me in his own head in the first place. It's just that his head can be a pretty screwy place." And Inari had just been hurting, like Taiki and now Neji. It wasn't like they didn't know that they were in the wrong to give up, right? They just had given up anyway.

"Sometimes I really wonder about people. Or more like a lot of time," he confessed.

"Why would Kabuto have cared if you were unhappy or not?" Neji asked. He was giving Naruto a Look, and his ghost eyes made it actually even more effective. When Naruto was a pre-Academy kid he had tried to find Hyuuga Hiashi's doorbell so he could play ding-dong-ditch with him because some bigger kids at the orphanage had told Naruto that he could eat souls with his crazy ghost eyes and that had been so cool. Sadly the Hyuuga mansion didn't have anything as newfangled and plebeian as a doorbell and Naruto had been thwarted until he had put a bucket of water over the door the one time it had been left open. He had gotten glared at then and it had been really creepily cool; he didn't think that Hiashi ever realized why Naruto had taken to stalking him across the village afterwards.

Neji's Look was a little like that; it would only have been seriously creepy, in a good way like creepy insects and old jutsu burn scars, when it was activated and the veins appeared. But even the normal white was really intense. Except with Hinata, her eyes always looked gentle, but she had to be the exception that proved the rule then.

"Because Kabuto's my friend and even he isn't so oblivious that he wouldn't realize that making your friends unhappy is a bad thing. And I'm not bitter because I'm going to change things. I'm going to make all Konoha realize that I'm not Kyuubi because I will protect them all! If I hurt people then they would never stop treating me like the fox so it would defeat the purpose. And do you really think that Hinata's ever going to brand anyone? Just trust her a little, and it'll all be alright in the end. We will come through for you, believe it!" Naruto declared and almost made a Good Guy Pose just to mess with Neji a little, but he probably had team-related traumas already so it would have been unnecessarily cruel.

"So what are you saying? That that's just how life is, so suck it up and survive?" Neji asked and averted his eyes. His voice was thick and raspy like he was swallowing something nasty and working really hard not to throw it up.

"It's life and nobody survives living, so why make ourselves unhappy when we can be happy? Just because it's hard now doesn't mean it's going to be hard forever. Hey, it stopped raining too!" Naruto tilted the umbrella back and raised his hand palm up. There were no drops and above them there was a rainbow, pale and barely there, but still. He hadn't looked forward walking all the way back to Migiwa in rain so that was all just great.

"Just like that," Neji muttered and Naruto looked back at him just in time to see his shoulders droop in surrender. But it wasn't a bad kind of surrender, it was like when Naruto finally gave in to Iruka-sensei and let him put band-aid over the scraped on his knees and fuss over him. It was letting someone do something for you kind of surrender; the best kind there was.

"Just try to be happy," he asked. It wasn't a lot to ask after all. It was animal instinct, practically, and it made Neji give him a wan smile.

**088. School**

Kabuto knew that he had just made Maito Gai more suspicious of himself. Suspicious of the true extent of his abilities, that was, not his motives. Hardly anything short of sneaking out to meet Oto or Iwa nin could manage that at the moment. He couldn't bring himself to regret it.

"I am a medic nin, Maito-san," he said docilely after riling him up for a sufficiently long time. "I may not be Tsunade of the Sannin, but I am capable of detecting the use of physical energy and I must congratulate you. Your use of it is ingenious."

He wasn't the natural genius that Tsunade of the Sannin was when it came to chakra control and medical techniques - his lack of empathy was a definite hindrance for a medic - but he made up for that in his willingness to fight dirty. Tsunade was a healer who had learned to kill, he was a killer who had learned to heal. Right now Tsunade could overpower him with relative ease, but in a few years' time? Kabuto's smile was perfectly pleasant.

"If I may ask, why you came back with the Youthful Naruto?" Maito Gai asked with the same mild, friendly voice Kabuto used. He might use it to fool his students, but...

_I'm not fooled by your demeanor. I can see you are more than what you present to the world._

"Everybody needs to know who they are, don't you agree?"

_And take that as you will. You could never get it quite right._

And Maito Gai's eyes narrowed as he briefly looked at Naruto who enjoyed the sun peeking between the clouds with the simple joy of a child. Kabuto knew for a fact that there was blood on Naruto's hands, but there was also a perplexing kind of innocence to Naruto that remained wholly untouched by the act of taking those lives. Maito Gai could see that there was more than what Kabuto presented to the world, but he couldn't see the depths Naruto hid behind his visage. Oh, he knew they were there; only a blind and deaf ninja or a raw genin couldn't – but that didn't mean Gai knew what would gaze back from those depths should he ever gaze into them. He had never been broken enough.

Life had put Kabuto through a hard school. First Danzo, then killing his – his mother, then Orochimaru. By the time Orochimaru got him he had already ceased to feel pain. It was like when someone performed minor surgery on you with local anesthesia; there was the sensation, almost shaking, almost tearing, that you knew should feel painful even though it didn't. He had lost his sense of self, his mother, and his pain. Naruto was the only thing he had left to lose in the world and he wasn't going to let that happen, ever. So of course Gai couldn't understand even the head game he was playing now. The Hyuuga clan was arguably the strongest single clan in Konoha now, though their political influence was compromised by their unwillingness to bend and compromise. Hyuuga Hinata was already Naruto's in her own unassuming way, but she lacked the backbone to effectively support Naruto. She was clearly working on that, but Kabuto didn't like uncertainties. Let Neji lean on Naruto, let him become a loyal follower of Naruto's vision as well. It wasn't as if Hinata had it in her to deny Neji anything after what her father had done to Neji's father.

"She can do that?" Naruto's voice called out. Then he dragged Neji back to the main group. The Hyuuga prodigy followed Naruto a step behind and his arm's length between then, exuding an air of indifference the best he could. But while the tilt of his chin was proud, he didn't try to take his arm back and that alone told a story of a hundred words.

"Hey, Tenten, Neji told that you can make scrolls that open automatically when it hits the ground, right? And you can make scrolls without any air inside, right?" He was practically vibrating, he was so eager. Neji was looking at him like a merchant might a tree that bore golden fruit; something awfully tempting and much too good to be true. Kabuto had a feeling he was letting some of that show through as well, but that was all right. It kept Gai's eyes on him and not on Neji.

"I can, why?" Tenten asked. Naruto's grin widened and a beam of sunlight streaming through a gap in clouds behind him hid his face in gentle shadows, gilding his hair. The timing was almost certainly coincidental, but Kabuto appreciated the dramatic effect anyway.

"Have you ever thought about making bombs? I have this great book and some of that stuff explodes the moment it comes in touch with oxygen. We would need a real laboratory for that..."

_Naruto Owns Your Soul and Teammates 101. Pay attention, there will be a quiz later._

**089. Work**

The days had dragged so slowly when Naruto-kun was away. Sometimes Miwa thought that maybe she should begin to call him Naruto-sama instead, but Naruto never complained and she was weak. She could still remember when she had thought Naruto was just a little younger than she was and she wasn't ready to give that honorific away, the last memento. She kept his books in order and saw to the training rotation of the fire brigade and the self defense training for the inn girls and she took care of his church.

And really, they had to stop calling it a cult. So Riku-nee thought that calling Narutoism a cult was flat-out funny? Big deal. No respectable religion should have to put up with such unfortunate connotations!

She had learned a lot lately. She had learned what words like connotations and anticlericalism and doctrine meant. She was so happy, except for those bastard Buddhists that claimed they weren't a real religion at all because they weren't serious enough about themselves. Hah. Just let's see them laugh once the missionaries started converting the Wind Country people!

It was an evening and Matsuzaki's shop was already closed. Matsuzaki-san could technically have already returned to his job, but he seemed to prefer playing a hermit in his home and mostly that pretty older neighbour lady, Sakuya, had to even shop for him. Miwa didn't know what had come upon him, but since Naruto-kun had taken responsibility for his shop she was taking care of it in his absence. She had already closed the shop, but she had taken the books with her to the headquarters. That police chief had been very docile lately and also the sort of baffled that told Miwa that there were possibilities. She had been a maiko and later a whore. She knew how to see the weaknesses in men, how to use them against them if they didn't physically assault her first. Naruto-kun was the only one who had never shown any of that desperate need for love or friendly ear or safety or anything, yet he didn't lord that invulnerability over anyone, and that was one more reason she admired him so.

But she had gotten off the track again. Yamamoto Takumo had the look of a man who could be willing to be persuaded if she only made the world (and Naruto-kun) make sense to him. And she could deliver! Sadly the Tax Office was less reasonable and the figures were making her head hurt.

"You might want to go outside," a voice with a lilting yet sharp accent that was apparently Water Country told her. Miwa jumped and turned around, almost toppling over her own hem in the process. There was Konatsu in her blue and gray, giving her an amused smile.

"You startled me," Miwa breathed and held her hand above her heart, rising from the seiza position. Konatsu's brother was nice, but she was the sort of a ninja Miwa had heard of before meeting Naruto and she didn't want to sit down in front of the girl, even if Konatsu was younger than her. Silent as falling snow, as cold and deadly. Miwa could never figure out what Konatsu was thinking and it scared her a bit, but Naruto-kun hadn't seemed bothered by it so everything was probably alright.

"Someone has returned," Konatsu said and tilted her head towards the door, her hair hiding her eyes in the process. It was only now that Miwa paid attention to the happy chatter of the children's voices outside. Naruto-kun had a following of children who had come by every day to demand to know when he would be back, the son of one of the policemen among them, much to his father's frustration. Miwa was certain that he had attempted to forbid Atsushimaru – poor child, what had those parents of his been thinking – from coming, but he might have as well tried to forbid water from running downhill. That was Naruto.

"Naruto-nii!" It was Atsushimaru's voice and Miwa's heart soared. She let the book fall to the tatami and ran towards the door. Seven days and they were back!

There he was, her Naruto-kun. He was so bright with his golden hair, sky blue eyes, tanned skin and the orange he wore, like a bold, resolute brushstroke of all rainbow colours in a black and white ink painting that was the rest of the world. Makimura didn't usually seem colourless to her, but he had that aura that made normal people and their normal colours pale in comparison. There was a group of five children clinging to his legs and Naruto-kun was talking to them, smiling like the sun. Kabuto was there as well, bone-pale as always, but Tsubaki hadn't returned and neither had Sai or Sasuke. Instead there was man in... green clingy clothes? And that haircut? And his teeth were really blinding. And was that a rain of cherry blossoms behind him, at this time of the year? Something about SPRING and YOUTH? And... holy shit, had some woman actually agreed to _procreate_ with the man? There was _another_?

And there were a normal boy and a girl with them, but she didn't pay attention to them. Really, she couldn't. So those two in green were ninja, but not normal ninja? She hoped so at least.

"Naruto-kun, welcome back," she called with a raspy voice. But of course Naruto-kun heard her and dragged the whole group to her, making introductions. Miwa clung desperately to the one she knew at least somewhat.

"It's nice to see you, Kabuto, I hope your trip went well. Naruto, I have kept your business in order and the church has decided to send missionaries to the Wind Country to convert people to the Narutoism," she blurted out. Naruto-kun made a strangled sound and looked kind of constipated. He was so modest; am admirable quality, certainly, but it was up to Miwa and her fellow believers to see to it that he didn't inadvertently cause harm to his cause. She was secure in his knowledge of Naruto-kun's worth and she was going to make the world at large acknowledge it. Come hell or high water, come unbound biju or a plague of locusts, the world was going to acknowledge her devotion to Naruto-kun. It was for his own good.

"I approve," Kabuto said. She had met him before they left Makimura for Konoha, of course, but they hadn't really spoken with each other. Miwa turned to him and for the first time recognized a fellow follower. She graced him with her brightest smile.

"I am honoured to meet you, Kabuto. In which capacity are you here if I may ask?" she demurred.

"I'm under observation by Konoha, really, but I'm a medic nin," Kabuto said.

_A medic, the possibilities of that..._

"That's wonderful, I have kept thinking that someone should teach the Great Naruto Fire Brigade at least the basic first aid, but finances are a bit tight until the next month. Would you consider helping us?" A faithful priestess's work was never done. Thank goodness.

**090. Home**

It was nice to be back in Makimura. It wasn't home to him, but Miwa-chan lived there and it seemed like Konatsu-chan and Kaede had warmed up to it lately, and there was Matsuzaki, though he had apparently refused to go out and meet anyone lately. Naruto wondered why and decided to go meet him before he left in any case. Matsuzaki had been kind of cool for an old man, even if he had been strange about the whole beating up Yakuza business. Since when was beating up criminals wrong, anyway? And of course Naruto had to take care of Miwa and the rest of the girls afterwards! Konatsu-chan had told him that four of the fire brigade girls could manage the water bullet now, and if that wasn't great, what was? Any sleazy guy who tried to lay hands on them was in for a big, big surprise now.

Of course, he had been right about Miwa getting completely out of hand. They were going to be preaching in the Wind Country and he had been stupid enough to say something about it being Gaara's domain, and then Miwa had decided that they needed to set up pilgrimage!

"So this is my life now," he said and leaned back on is arms, looking at the starry sky from his porch. There weren't that many stars that could be seen from Makimura; the corona of the lights of the town sucked in and drowned most of the tiny start twinkles. But the big stars could be seen and it reminded him of Konoha a little. Konoha was a big village, but dark during the night. Even the civilians understood the necessary of not standing out and the stars could always be seen except during the festival nights.

"Just what you expected? It's not like you have protested that strenuously," a voice called from the courtyard. It was pretty embarrassing, but at least Idate was as good as a shinobi, practically, so it wasn't like a civilian sneaked up on him. Naruto was still a little sheepish when he waved at him.

"She's a girl and girls are scary," he confided in Idate. Not all were scary the same way of course. Some were scary like Tsunade-baachan and could finger-flick you through a wall, but that wasn't so scary because Tsunade-baachan was a big softy deep down. Some were scary like Ino because she knew things about everyone. Some were scary like Sakura-chan because just looking at them made you want to be stupid and she would hurt you if you were stupid. It was a cunning kunoichi booby-trap designed to get innocent genin heads bashed in and still make them happy about it! Ahem.

Then there were girls who were scary the way Iruka-sensei was scary. That sounded a tiny bit wrong because Iruka-sensei wasn't a girl, but he had that "I'm going to do this in the name of your own good" attitude down better than most girls so it still counted. Guys could be so touchy about being called girls, but not in the hidden villages. Still, Iruka-sensei would have only been offended about being called scary in that extra-scary way of his, but that was that and Naruto had a theory that it was some curious sort of denial Iruka had going on there when even the jounin were wary of handing him less than perfect mission reports.

On occasion the girls were just plain scary and incomprehensible so you never knew what would make them go scary on you, but that was one in the plus column because ninja were supposed to be scary and incomprehensible. Yay for the girls.

"She isn't out to make me eat my broccoli and asparagus, but that doesn't mean she isn't Iruka-sensei," he grumbled. "Except Iruka-sensei actually knows what's best for me and Miwa's just scary like Iruka-sensei, you know?"

"I'm going to pretend I do because I'm not sure I want to actually understand that one," Idate muttered and sat by him. Well, he had been out of the village for a long time. Naruto had to get something done about that pesky technically-dead-or-he-would-be-a-missing-nin thing because he had to got to visit his brother eventually. Maybe after Tsunade-baachan stopped smarting about Kabuto.

"I have thought about asking Miwa-chan out, you know?" Idate asked. It came out of blue, but it made Naruto grin. "I mean, my family has thought about setting up a business here, and those inns and that casino boat of yours need supplies..."

"So you're are going to live here, too! That's great! Now I can visit everyone at the same time," Naruto crowed.

"You're are going to visit us?" Idate asked and Naruto snorted. Talk about stupid questions! Of course he was going to visit as often as he could. They were his friends! And besides, he had to keep an eye on Miwa and her scary high priestess split personality.

"Like you have managed so far," Idate snorted.

"Hey, I try! She's just, you know, a scary girl," Naruto protested. Why he even made friends with so scary people, he didn't know. He would be better off sticking with people like Sasuke and Gaara and Kabuto in the future. "Wait a moment, did I say that out loud?"

"As long as nobody's celibate," Idate grumbled. "Least of all Miwa-chan."

"Why would Miwa-chan be celibate?" Naruto asked. There was no reason whatsoever for Idate to give him the hairy eyeball, really.

This way or that way, Makimura was nice. Even if it wasn't his home, it was a home to his friends. So few people had ever invited Naruto as a house guest that he reveled in the feeling of acceptance. Now it was a matter of waiting for Jiraiya-sensei.


	19. Chapter 19

**Where There Is a Shocking Revelation and Kyuubi Has No Indoor Voice**

* * *

**091. Birthday**

Naruto had four somewhat, kind-of peaceful days in Makimura, not counting the first day which was more like half a day. Kabuto started teaching the fire brigade girls first aid, the stuff with bandages and CPR, and no jutsu because the jutsu took an insane amount of chakra control, and Gai started helping Idate with his taijutsu. There were some difficulties at first because Gai apparently remembered Idate from before, but Gai was pretty cool about it in the end.

"You are aware that Idate-san has left Konoha most un-youthfully?" he asked Naruto when Idate walked through the door after a training session with the girls, his bangs glued flat against his skull with sweat.

Idate flinched, but he lifted his chin defiantly and stood his ground, only shifting his legs a bit more apart for better balance. His mouth only had a second to flatten into a thin line before he opened his mouth and Naruto had to cut in because he just knew that Idate was going to say something stupid, like that Gai could take him to Konoha and that the Wasabi family never knew anything about him. Well, the bit about protecting the Wasabi family wasn't stupid because only rats ratted out their families - no pun intended, it wasn't even all that funny - and okay, so Naruto wouldn't have run away either if Iruka-sensei's well-being was on the line or something, but that was different because he wouldn't have left Konoha either.

Iruka-sensei had been the one to foil Mizuki-sensei. Kakashi-sensei would never have pulled a Mizuki-sensei on him and Naruto thought that maybe he had just been really lucky when it came to teachers. Except for the part where Mizuki-bastard had been the one to teach him taijutsu and pulled a Mizuki-sensei on him years before Naruto even coined the term.

"Hey, since Aoi predated Mizuki, should I refer to it as pulling an Aoi instead?" Naruto only realized he had said that out loud when the tension in the room dropped like a ton of bricks, only to be replaced by those blank looks that meant he had once again failed to remember that other people didn't live in his brain. He only realized now how ready Konatsu-chan and Kaede had been to fight until their hands inched that crucial half inch away from their kunai pouches. Kabuto didn't show anything, but then, he wouldn't.

"I was just thinking out loud," he defended himself, but that didn't do a whole lot to help the stares. Naruto gave up. "Look, I knew it after that Tea Country Race mission when Ibiki came to debrief us. He's your friend, right? Shouldn't you trust his judgement on this?" Wanting to protect your family wasn't stupid, but thinking that Idate needed to be dragged back to Konoha most definitely was. Besides, he wasn't sure if Gai and Ibiki were in fact friends, but they were in the same age bracket and Gai was the sort of person who was a friend to others whether they wanted it or not. He dazzled them with sunsets and the Power of Youth and declared eternal friendship. It was common knowledge in Konoha that when you tried to run after him to protest you found he had tied your sandal straps together while you rubbed your eyes. That ended with the ground hitting you over the head, and then Gai wanted to Nurse you to back to the Youthful Bloom of Health with the Power of Youth and offered band aids and in the end you decided it was just less hazardous to say yes. He was kind of... really Gai like that.

And of course, Naruto being very much Naruto like that, the parallels completely escaped him.

"He is, indeed." Gai looked him right in the eye and Naruto looked back, ready to make an issue out of it. Ibiki was alright with it and Aoi had paid for his dastardly deeds and _that was that_. But before he could protest further Gai's face was split by a small smile. It looked odd on his face, soft around the edges, and Naruto felt strangely honoured to see that small smile instead of the huge, glittering grin that was on the man's face most of the time.

"Yes, valiant Ibiki is my friend and I am glad that you have not betrayed his trust," he said. His team hovered somewhere at his back and probably looked terribly confused, but Naruto had a hard time looking away from Gai's face. He gulped. Gai had been fierce when he had fought Kisame, but there were fiercer things in him than violence.

"Yeah. Not like Sakura-chan did either. Or Sasuke, whatever else that bastard betrayed," he muttered.

"My Eternal Rival must be terribly proud of you!" Gai bellowed and gave Naruto the Good Guy pose, which Lee mirrored behind him. In a way, that broke the mood. In another way... it didn't. Naruto so wanted Kakashi-sensei to be proud of him.

"So, we agree on this," Naruto muttered and started to drag Idate to the kitchen just to do something, to get away from it all. But those few steps took him past Konatsu-chan and Kaede and they had been great about the whole thing so he stopped there. They were due their due now.

"Thanks, you were great. Like, any village that would have halved that greatness must be terminally stupid. Did the daimyo drop it on its head when it was founded?" he said. They had been ready to fight Gai and anyone who was ready to fight someone who wore that much spandex and pulled it off was very brave indeed.

"It's alright. It was mostly Konatsu," said Kaede. He scuffed the off-white tatami with his feet and looked down. Naruto noticed that he had really long and girly eyelashes for a boy, but it would have been really low to tease him for it now.

"Except when it wasn't. You're alright too, Naruto," Konatsu-chan said and looked him straight in the eye and that was that. At least almost. "Have you given any thought to continuing your bloodline a few years down the road? Our genes would be awesome together."

"EH?"

So. Konatsu-chan had joined the scary brigade, wanted to have a child eventually and was ready to let him have one too - she was generous like that - and Kabuto was teaching the girls to make ointments for burn wounds and so forth. Miwa-chan was still Miwa-chan, of course.

"The world is like a birthday cake. Taking a piece is okay, but more is rude. Let's keep things in Makimura," Naruto tried to dissuade her. She tilted her head and the pretty hairpin she was wearing made a tingling sound.

"Are you trying to convince me that you have ever taken only one piece of any cake on the table?" Miwa-chan asked and gave him that knowing eyebrow; Naruto made a guilty eeping sound and tried to sink through the floor. So Miwa was Miwa and Maito Gai had maybe joined the cult - Naruto was too scared of the answer to ask - and Idate hadn't been arrested and things weren't any more insane than they usually were; this was his life, somehow. Then Jiraiya-sensei came back. He was early, which was unusual.

He had a pretty girl with him, and that wasn't unusual in the least.

**092. Christmas**

It was evening and Naruto was sitting on an old sofa someone had found from somewhere. Things had just appeared while he had been away and kept appearing because that morning he had eaten his cereal and nutrition pills from a brand new Takoyaki the Ninja Mouse plate - and so had everyone else. Those had been an emergency acquisition because all the other plates in the house had gotten contaminated by an unfortunate chemical experiment that had apparently been conducted in the middle of the night for some reason - without waking anyone. It was kind of nice to not be the automatic suspect, even though Naruto half-wished he had thought of it first. Konatsu had made faces and held her chopsticks like she wanted to impale the brave mouse shinobi with them while Kaede had pulled a face that made Naruto think he had been behind it. He had managed to suppress the snickering, but not to keep his mouth from twitching. _I have no shame and Konatsu does_, the twitching said loud and clear. _Lucky me_.

(Let the Inspiring, Youthful Example of our mouse comrade Stoke the Fires of Youth in us, Gai buoyed them. _Yikes!_)

Okay, so maybe the plates were dead embarrassing, but they were secretly kind of cool too because Naruto never got the Ninja Mouse plate he wanted when he was a child because the orphanage was low at funds. And at least the sofa was nice. Naruto curled up on it, pulling his knees up so that his chin could rest on them and read a certain well-loved book about explosives.

"Hey, Tenten, what about tracking explosives? They're paint bombs with really sticky, slow-drying, smelly paint. Makes you leave tracks wherever you go and can't be washed away without turpentine," he called to the kitchen. Tenten made some vague noises that didn't tell Naruto if she was listening at all or not, but then, she was busy making bombs and that was a tricky job.

The sun was setting behind some trees on the hill to the west and the colors in the room became cooler even though the air didn't, at least not in front of the window. Naruto was feeling lazy and just staring out of it when he saw Jiraiya-sensei. At first he didn't realize it was his sensei and thought it was just some random white-haired guy. Jiraiya-sensei wasn't fat at all, but he had a lot of muscles, and they were the bulky kind more than the sleek kind like Kakashi-sensei's. If his hair had been shorter and if he had been wearing a mask Naruto would probably have mistaken him for Kakashi-sensei at first, in fact. He wore some clothes Naruto had never seen on him either and the pretty woman trotting after him in a slightly pained manner was the only normal thing about the whole picture.

"Hey, Ero-sensei!" Naruto shouted and threw the window open. "You are early! What's happened to you? You look really terrible. And who have you tricked into coming with you this time? You better leave now, lady, he's an incurable pervert," Naruto warned the woman as he jumped through the window. She hid her mouth with her hand and snorted in a way that was a lot less ladylike than the demure gesture. Naruto liked her immediately.

"You should respect your teacher, brat – more than you ever do!" Ero-sensei bellowed, thumping him over the head in that way that was a lot gentler than it looked. "I am the Gallant Jiraiya and I have lived up to my reputation by saving this fair maiden!" He made that silly hopping dance he always made when he started spouting words like "gallant" and "legendary" around. Naruto had read once that that being teased could make people do strange things, and he thought that Jiraiya must have been teased really badly. A lot.

And of course, Naruto being very much Naruto, the parallels completely escaped him.

"Is she a princess? I once saved a princess too, that was Koyuki-hime, she used to be Fujikaze Yukie when she was still hiding from her evil uncle," told the girl and wondered where she was royalty and what evil relative or adviser needed his ass kicked now. She just shook her head, though, and looked really sad.

"My name is Morimoto Tomomi and I'm no princess," she said. "I used to be a kunoichi of Iwa." Naruto was going to console her and tell her that the jerks in Iwa - whatever they had done to her - hadn't deserved her anyway and would get their asses kicked if Jiraiya-sensei hadn't for once lived up to his self-appointed nickname and done it already, but that was when Ero-sensei coughed very pointedly.

"Funny thing you mentioned Kazahana Koyuki. My information network intercepted her letter to you," he drawled and handed Naruto the letter. Naruto cheered and grabbed it, but his mood darkened when he noticed it had been opened already.

"Hey, did you read this? Because reading other people's post might be a shinobi thing, but we're only supposed to go shinobi on non-Konohan shinobi and now I'm going to read your post right back." That would teach him. Maybe Ero-sensei would write some really sappy love letter he could mock too...

Koyuki-hime hadn't sent a sappy love letter, had she? Because she was older and Naruto liked Sakura-chan and she hadn't ever made puppy eyes/cow eyes at him at all like those Uchiha fangirls always did whenever Sasuke walked by them, but the way his luck had run lately Koyuki had had gotten struck by lightning or something and developed some delusional love for him. And then Ero-sensei was going to mock him mercilessly... Except he looked more grave and angry than anything.

"I can't leave you alone even for a moment, can I? This letter only confirmed what my network already told me. You have apparently decided to found a jinchuuriki cult, never mind that you were supposed to _keep a low profile_, and a ruler of a sovereign state has decided to found a holy day in your honour in lieu of _a proper protocol_ to offer congratulations for this. It's in midwinter and it's celebrated by handing out presents and bringing symbolical evergreen trees inside, presumably to die in a symbolic way."

"Hey, that's great!" Naruto cheered, but instantly deflated under the withering stare. Ero-sensei looked like he meant business, this time.

"It wasn't my fault, these crazy missing-finger people started trying to beat me up and then they tried to rape Miwa-chan, what was I supposed to do? And it really was evil to tell Konatsu-chan to kill her brother so I gave her shelter and that hunter-nin failed evil forever so he stayed too, except now he's staying in Konoha." He was babbling and maybe not telling this the way he should have, but damn it, he had been in the right. Things had gotten out of hand, but he didn't regret a thing, couldn't regret a thing. "Then that police chief thought I was a yakuza boss, but no worries, we had a sports day and he changed his mind. Except, eh, he kind of decided that I was a cult leader instead and Taiki had sent that letter to Kiri and then Miwa-chan decided that having a cult was a great idea. So it wasn't my fault!"

Jiraiya-sensei didn't look like he believed in his innocence at all. He was holding his face in his palms and Naruto thought that was only because he lacked a convenient surface to bang his head against. His face was red and he was making these huffing noises, like he weighed twice his original weight instead of a lot less.

"Not even two whole months," he moaned.

"But I got Sasuke back too! Well, Kabuto got him back too. And I got Kabuto pardoned so everything's okay on that front," he said and patted Jiraiya-sensei's arm, deciding to have mercy on him and give some good news.

"Yakushi Kabuto what!"

**093. Thanksgiving**

Deidara's eyes were full of hate, and Itachi approved. Just not for the reason anyone who had heard his official reason for becoming a missing-nin - the words he had spoken to his brother as a gambit for a seppuku-by-proxy - would have thought.

"I will kill you. One day, whatever it takes," Deidara swore. His pupils shrunk, an involuntary reaction, and he clearly expected Itachi to take umbrage. Yet, he had said so. He wasn't going to allow himself to be controlled.

Itachi was counting on that. The boy looked more like half-drowned rat than anything else, his clothes torn and glued to his skin, his hair hanging limply - but there was such brilliant potential.

The sun was setting and it was raining in the Earth Country. Itachi loved when it rained at night. He could hear the drops, the water falling, and that was enough for him. He was used to seeing so much, remembering so much, that sometimes he wondered why his brain didn't bleed as his eyes did; but in the darkness he couldn't see what he heard and that was a blessing. Sharingan eyes were famous and infamous, but it wasn't superior to Byakugan in every respect, not even at its highest level. It still needed visible light and more than a cloud-covered night offer and a clear line of vision. This night was going to be pitch dark, so far from all human habitation, there was the sound of a hundred thousand raindrops and more, and Itachi reveled in that even as he played his part. _Cool_, he thought, at the air drifting through his hair and water on his face and the fresh scent of moist foliage.

"Aren't you going to do anything?" Deidara challenged him and still the former Iwa jounin's vital's didn't change. Itachi was very certain that he wanted to die. That was too bad; Itachi wasn't too keen on living himself, but if wishes were fishes, no-one would ever go hungry.

"Am I supposed to care?" he asked and rolled his shoulders in a carefully calculated gesture of indifference. An oxymoron that might be, but an efficient one so as to rekindle some of the old fire in Deidara. The younger man's nostrils flared and his cheeks reddened.

"In this world of hate, people are resources to be used. You are no more special than any other. You are worth no more than many better than you who are dead now." The heavy drops rolled off Itachi's hair and down onto the tip of his nose, then down his cheeks and over his lips to drip off the end of his chin. He was cold under the last rays of the sun and it was so sweet. The rain still tasted and felt pure even when he wasn't.

There was a reason Itachi was baiting Deidara, a very good reason. He didn't know why Kakuzu had accepted the mission to kill this man's lover and that wasn't really of importance to their situation. Deidara would resent Itachi for forcing him to live and for forcing him to join yet another cause, and that resentment could only double when he found out that he was a member of the same terrorist group as Tomomi's killer. Deidara would be a time bomb set to blow up on Akatsuki at any moment he felt himself strong enough.

Much could be said of Itachi, but he had never forgotten his one, true loyalty, the one he had experienced when he had stood in front of the Memorial stone after the Yondaime's death, the one that made even finding comfort in cold rain worth it. There were few enough reasons for him to feel thankful, but somehow every day he remembered that day was a day to feel grateful he had lived, had chosen to be loyal. If he wasn't loyal, what would he be other than nothing?

The palm on Deidara's hand opened the slightest bit. Itachi had never seen this technique used in a fight before - it had been forbidden and forgotten for longer than he had lived - and he allowed Deidara to grab his clay, smiling. Any day he learned something new was a day to be grateful, he told himself.

Much could be said of Itachi, but no-one ever accused him of being stupid. He had learned the art of sabotage before he could walk down the street of any settlement other than Konoha and not have a well-meaning adult to ask where his mommy was. In the Country of Earth an explosive had been prepared, again by one of Konoha. Its fuse was ever-so-slowly burning shorter and shorter.

**094. Independence**

In Makimura it was yet another perfectly beautiful evening.

"You totally didn't know that about your own village, did you? What kind of spymaster are you anyway?"

Jiraiya had sat Naruto across the table in the safe house turned operations headquarters and he hadn't been surprised in the least when Kabuto had walked in only scent minutes later, mild as milk and pleasant as please. The rest of the misfits had been sent out of the house for an hour or so and a few privacy seals ensured no-one could eavesdrop on them. He had demanded answers about Kabuto, but that had turned into a rambling story about Danzo.

"A spymaster who spends the majority of his time hundreds of miles from Konoha spying on her enemies," he said. Naruto gave him a flat stare that told him that excuse didn't fly and he had to admit, reluctantly, that it really didn't. "It was Danzo. The sad truth about being a ninja is that there is always a bigger fish, kiddo. There is always someone better and badder than you. I guess I just found mine." Admitting that was like swallowing glass.

It had been a long time since Jiraiya had been flat-out bested in anything. Salamander Hanzo had beaten the three students of Sandaime in a fight and named them the Sannin because he had been so impressed they could fight against him and not die immediately, but that had been in the mists of his youth. His student had surpassed him in the arts of battle and sealing both, but that wasn't something any teacher could ever regard as a defeat. Jiraiya was fairly certain that during Sandaime's second reign he could have beaten his own teacher in a battle; the old man had aged well, but that truth was that he had aged. His spy network was the best in the Elemental Countries; he had even sent a warning to Konoha that the leaders of Sand and Sound had been meeting in secret and his suspicions that the Otokage was in fact Orochimaru, so while he hadn't figured the invasion out, he had at least been on the right track, just out of time. He had gotten used to being at the top of his game and the fall _hurt_.

"It wasn't that I didn't know Danzo had his fingers in many pies. I thought... never mind that. It seems that Danzo let me to find out just enough that I didn't get suspicious about the rest of it. But that is a wonderful conversation for another day." Jiraiya turned the full weight of his attention to Kabuto. Not quite killing intent, the technique was rather similar: it allowed the target to physically experience the observation. It was something even civilians could sometimes do accidentally, but with the chakra of one of the Sannin behind it, well, Jiraiya had once heard it compared to divine judgment.

Kabuto didn't speak out of turn. He didn't even fidget. Jiraiya's mood darkened even more at that.

"Why did you bring back Uchiha Sasuke? I can't imagine it was from the goodness of your heart," he drawled. The jinchuuriki meant power and Naruto, should he learn to get over his fear of Kyuubi's power and properly control it, could mean the biggest power boost there was in the Elemental Countries.

"I once made a promise to Naruto-sama that when he founded a ninja organization I would join it. Naruto-sama gave me the colour of a person who always keeps his promises," Kabuto answered, forcing Jiraiya to do a double take. He understood every single word, but the whole of it didn't make much sense.

"Care to explain this?" he asked Naruto. It was a sad day indeed when he asked Naruto of all people to make sense of someone even more inexplicable than himself.

"Well, I sneaked out of the orphanage this one time when I was a kid because the bigger kids kept talking how cool it would be to sneak out at night and then I met Kabuto. And then we were friends." At this point Naruto graced Kabuto with one of those heart-rendingly bright smiles and Jiraiya realized with a pang that he had probably been Naruto's first friend. Oh shit, the way this could have gone down... "No-one else played ninja like we did. We even had drop bags and..."

"Drop bags! Were you preparing to take Naruto with you?" Jiraiya's voice went up in pitch until it cracked at the end. Missing Danzo had been one thing, but he had missed that? Minato would have come back from the Shinigami's stomach to haunt him if Jiraiya had let Orochimaru take his son. And he would have been beaten to the punch by Kushina who didn't have to claw her way through stomach lining to get at him.

"Of course not, Ero-sensei. You think that bastard Danzo would have let him take me to a mission in Iwa? Even though I would totally have gone with him," Naruto grumbled.

"I would have taken you anywhere if you asked," Kabuto said glibly, prompting a wince from Naruto.

"Please stop helping me now?" he groused and looked at Jiraiya, lifting his chin defiantly. The last time Jiraiya had seen that look had been when he tried to convince Naruto to give up on Sasuke.

"So we played ninja, and I was pretty good at finding blackmail and recruiting these genjutsu characters, but I didn't blackmail them into it so don't start going on about bad influence, okay?" Dear gods, Anbu training simulations? "And I helped Kabuto with his colours. And look, it's a private thing and you wouldn't like it if, I don't know… Tsunade-baachan started airing your private business for the whole world to see, right? So, I'm only going to say that Kabuto started forgetting something really important and I reminded him. He gave Orochimaru the boot and came back to Konoha and brought Sasuke back to me because he had made a promise to me and loyalty's a two-way street. He needed colours, I gave him colours, I needed him to return and he returned. He isn't going to tell my secrets and I'm not telling his. I know what I'm doing and I have the track record to prove it. We're going to kill Orochimaru. Unless he's still one of your precious people?"

And this, Jiraiya though, was as good declaration of independence as any. What an utter headache.

"Don't worry, any lingering feelings I might have had for Orochimaru died with sensei," he said and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He left Naruto alone for less than two whole months and this happened. Though, in all fairness, a lot of it had started years ago.

Years ago under his nose and he had missed it. It was so very clear that Kabuto had been taught by Danzo. It was also clear that those colours were a shared metaphor for something else entirely, but Jiraiya needed a little more context to pin down exactly what.

"And what made you decide to ask Naruto for your 'colours'?" he fished for that extra piece of information that would make everything else make sense. He didn't want to try and pressure Naruto on this because whether he won or lost, he had a feeling that this was one issue that could cost him his student's trust if it wasn't handled carefully.

"It had to be someone loyal. Someone who wasn't damaged goods yet, who would be worth the dirty work I was doing. Someone who embodied Konoha. Someone who was Konoha," Kabuto spoke slowly, his eyes distant like they were looking into the past, like he was trying to remember something for the first time in a long while. Gods, he couldn't even remember why he chose Naruto in the first place. "And I knew that Naruto-sama was born to be that to the whole village even if, living in denial, Konoha couldn't bear to admit it. It wasn't even that hard to figure out. I intended to tell Naruto-sama once he became a little older and more careful about keeping secrets, but by then, he was more Konoha to me than Konoha itself. In the end it was nothing for me to betray the village, because losing it meant nothing as long as I didn't lose Naruto-sama. Loyalty to Konoha was one of his colours, not mine." He turned to look at Naruto like he was seeing the boy for the first time a second time around.

"I really didn't think loyal-to-the-village-Konoha wasn't obvious," Naruto complained.

"I think it was, in the very beginning, but then Danzo happened. Again. After that, I could only see what I had explicitly been given to see. I apologize, Naruto-sama." Kabuto shrugged and Jiraiya could read a multitude of completely conflicting things into the gesture, yet nothing at the same time. This whole thing was really starting to give him a headache.

"I chose you because you embody Konoha, Naruto-sama, and I always intended to tell you why. You are the son..."

"DON'T..."

"...of Yondaime Hokage Namikaze Minato."

"Yondaime!"

**095. New Year**

Within the seal Kurama impatiently waited for a chance, any chance, any spike of chakra or any flash of emotion to take advantage of. Those bloody eyes of Uchiha Madara, the bastardization of the Rikudo Sennin's heritage, had taken his free will. After that Senju Hashirama had proved to be very much a fruit from the same tree and taken his freedom, helped by his Uzumaki wife. The yellow-haired man whose shadow still haunted the seal and his wife had pulled a reproduction of the same, though at least Kurama had been able to make them pay for it with their lives. All this he had swallowed, the bitter chalk, and he seethed in the hate and basked in it.

But now... Now these cultists were going to take the name of his father and twist it to their own will and Kurama had had enough for once and all.

It was hard to tell the passage of time within the seal. It could have been a very long time since the last time, or maybe very short, but finally there was a silvery flash that struck through the body of his host with almost the intensity of physical pain. There was no hate, only a mad swirl of surprisedisbeliefyearningpride(bitterness)WHYDIDN' TANYONETELLMEhappinessMYFATHER. It wasn't hate, wasn't Kurama's demesne, but the raw force of it was such that it left Naruto wide open, allowed him to reach out with the ebb and flow of chakra through the seal and _pull_. The form of a human child tumbled down the imaginary hallway leading to the bars of the cage, the fragile, powerful seal holding it shut.

"Oh, hey, furball, guess what? I have a father!" the blond human worm declared inanely and smiled, completely without fear. It made Kurama growl and throw himself against the bars. The force of that desperate lunge was almost as potent as Naruto's revelation had been, but much more futile.

"LET ME OUT SO I CAN DEVOUR YOU AND YOUR CULT AND YOUR VILLAGE!" Kurama bellowed with such force it made the human worm flinch and he felt satisfaction, imagining his very voice rattling the fragile self image.

"No way I'm gonna let you out, you stupid fox. My dad died to put you in there, you know, and my mom too, and I don't want anyone devoured." The boy-worm clucked his tongue and then blew a raspberry at Kurama and _that was really too much_.

"MY FATHER IS DEAD AS WELL AND YOU ARE USING HIS NAME TO YOUR OWN ENDS!"

"Well, you killed my father, you bastard, so you don't… wait a second, you had a father?" The presumptuousness of that! Though it wouldn't have mattered what Uzumaki Naruto said, Kurama wanted to be enraged, and no words could defuse that.

"OF COURSE I HAD A FATHER! DID YOU THINK I BUDDED FROM JUUBI'S SIDE LIKE A RUNNER FROM STRAWBERRY? WITHOUT HIS ACTIONS I NEVER WOULD HAVE COME TO BE!" This only went to prove how short human memory was. For Kurama time wasn't counted with turns of seasons, but climate changes and plagues, the births and deaths of the leaders of the summon creatures and the maelstroms of hate that destroyed great empires. For humans his father's time was ancient history.

"You have no idea what indoor voice means, right?" the human complained and lifted his hands to cover his ears. "Who was Juubi?"

"JUUBI WAS A PRIMORDIAL ENTITY THAT SOUGHT TO DESTROY THE WORLD. THE SAGE OF THE SIX PATHS, MY FATHER, FOUGHT IT." The shock of this boy's ignorance was starting to break through the rage Kurama felt. He had known that humans were a forgetful species, but to forget the best of them who ever lived? This species only had one to redeem it and Rikudo was dead. Dead. It was of no use to wish the dead had been immortal.

"The Sage of the Six Paths was your father? And, uh, had sex with this Juubi? Was it some kind of enemy kunoichi attraction thing?" the boy-worm prattled inanely and for the first time in his long life Kurama was shocked entirely silent. He understood every single word used and the sentence structure made sense, but those words echoed in his ears like fleshy noise that couldn't make sense.

"Uh, sorry, I guess you don't want to think about your dad having sex, right? I mean, I don't even remember mine and I don't want..."

_And, uh, had sex with this Juubi?_

"I wonder who my mother was. She must have been Uzumaki since dad's name was Namikaze, but nobody ever told me her name..."

_Enemy kunoichi attraction thing._

"HOW DARE YOU MOCK ME! I WILL BE FREE EVEN IF IT IS THE LAST THING I WILL EVER DO AND THEN I WILL UTTERLY DESTROY YOU!" Kurama threw himself against the bars again with a clang that couldn't be heard as much as it could be felt in the bones. The seal on the gate rustled like the golden silk paper on the lanterns of his father's palace, like a precious, fragile thing, but the accursed thing held yet.

"Indoor voice! And I wasn't mocking you, but if Juubi was your mother and he was your father, how come they got you if they didn't have sex?" The boy's chakra radiated plaintively and his body was open, almost relaxed. He didn't seem afraid and he didn't even seem cruel. Kurama was offended. Blue eyes very much like those haunted his memories, a face like the boy's, but framed by red hair.

Blood red hair and blood red skin, death in a gasp and the child in life, damn it to Hell.

"RIKUDO SENNIN FOUGHT JUUBI AND SEALED IT INSIDE HIS OWN BODY. BUT SHOULD HE HAVE DIED, THE BEAST WOULD HAVE ESCAPED, AND HE WAS ONLY MORTAL MAN. SO HE SPLIT IT INTO NINE BIJU; HIS CHILDREN," he explained, wondering all the while why he even bothered. Why educate someone too foolish to appreciate it, someone who had to die so Kurama could be free again?

"Hey, you said strawberry!" the boy shouted and pointed at him; Kurama blinked, wondering again if there was something wrong with his hearing. Or maybe the captivity had finally gotten to him and he had hallucinated this entire conversation.

"WHAT?" he asked even though he probably shouldn't encourage figments of his imagination.

"You said strawberry earlier, don't try to deny it. You're Kyuubi, and you said strawberry! That's funny," the boy laughed and Kurama stared at him through the bars. He had a feeling he was quickly losing the control over this conversation. He opened his mouth, uncertain how to get back to the original point, when foreign chakra rippled through the seal and he knew the boy's teacher was trying to wake him, call his consciousness back from the seal. Kurama didn't even know whether he was disappointed or not.

"Look, I gotta go now, but... I really am sorry your dad is dead. That sucks," the boy said. Then he flickered like the heart of a candle that had burned out leaving Kurama to stare the spot on the floor where he had stood.

What?

Kurama didn't count time in years, but in eras. Humans celebrated every new year, and maybe that made sense to them; their lives were so short. Kurama hadn't bothered with the convention after his father's death, but now he couldn't shake the feeling that for good or ill, this wholly inconspicuous year marked the beginning of something entirely new.

* * *

AN: BiblioMatsuri continues to be my wonderful beta. ^_^

We have almost reached the end of How to Win Friends, Influence People and Start Your Very Own Secret Ninja Organization. It has been a long ride and I want to thank my readers for their support.

Once upon a time there was an avid fanfiction reader who went by sparrowette. She sometimes read those 100 theme drabbles when she liked the fandom and characters involved, but she so very often bumped into one that was incomplete and had last been updated sometime two years ago. Isn't there a single completed table in the Internet, she wondered. Well, of course there were, but it seemed a rare thing when compared to the total count of the tables and she dared herself to complete one. Then she dared herself to complete the prompts in numerical order and chronological order just because. She needed a few flash-backs in the end, but those don't count, right? Right?

(Damn you, Kabuto, for foiling me! And Tomomi too.)

So, in the next and last chapter: we will finally learn what event sent the sequence of events off the canon tracks and into AU land! Naruto makes one more promise of a lifetime! What are they thinking about this all in Suna? What will become of Makimura after Naruto leaves it and what consequences this international ballyhoo has for Konoha? Stay tuned!


	20. Chapter 20

**Happy Hippie Harmony in Suna and Other Tales**

* * *

**096. Writer's Choice: Butterfly**

_History is written in stone: what has been done can never been undone. Time is that merciless dimension where it's only possible to move in one direction. (Discounting those rumours about Sharingan at its highest level, but they've never been proved and are probably just wishful thinking, denial on steroids.)_

_But history can also be strangely flexible. One single decision can spin its course into another decision entirely. The year Zabuza decided to join the Kirigakure Ninja Academy…_

_Zabuza wasn't a student yet when he might have slaughtered the whole graduating class in hopes of entering the ranks. During the reign of the Fourth Mizukage, Kirigakure had begun using a new graduation ritual where the members of the graduating class were paired against each other in death matches; yet more proof that Uchiha Madara had some serious deep-reaching issues, though this fact wouldn't be found out in a long time yet. It was a lot better than going through pointless years in the Academy, he decided, watching when his supposed peers tried to hit the edges of the target with a kunai and have it land with the blade forward._

_But on his way to the training grounds Zabuza walked past a kunoichi-hopeful. She was a small one, due to the lack of nutrition during her early childhood, and she was nearly shaking from fear. She was crying because she was certain she would not live to see another day and for the first time in his life Zabuza felt pity. He asked for the girl's name and it was given; no-family-name Noriko, just another orphan who'd joined the Academy to have a roof over her head and three meals a day. He asked for her opponent's name, and she told him._

_Zabuza waited until Noriko's match came and challenged the boy she had been pitted against, killing him easily. Then he demanded entrance to the Academy, which he could easily have claimed just by walking in and writing his name on the entrance form – or asking someone else to write it, since he couldn't actually read or write at that point. Ten minutes of pity had him going through one full year of the Academy and then slaughtering every instructor there because he was just that pissed off by the whole thing. The village administration judged the instructors unfit for falling to the blade of a first year student and decreed that should a student manage to kill an Academy teacher, they would automatically graduate – which only served to make the teachers that much more paranoid._

_Zabuza became first a candidate and then a member of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist and later attempted a coup, after which he fled for his life and became yet another missing-nin from the bloody village, and that was that. Only it wasn't._

_This action made many impacts, though they weren't easily seen. Noriko lived to graduate without fighting anyone because of a bureaucratic mistake and the ballyhoo over a pre-Academy hopeful killing a graduating student, but this only earned her two more years of life before she died on her first B-ranked mission. More importantly, the graduation ritual wasn't cancelled. Many more people continued to die in the years to come because Madara was as easy to reason with as a rock and sanity wasn't one of Tobi's good points; and as a result Kiri's forces slowly but surely began to thin out, since the influx of new ninja didn't quite make up for those who died in line of duty or went missing. The practice was finally cancelled one year after the perfectly cut-and-dried graduation inconsequential students Mizushima Konatsu and her half-brother Kaede escaped from their match. This all left Kiri much diminished and Madara madder than a beehive that had just been hit with a stick because that accursed Senju had _not been wrong_ about something not working. Oh, and a lot of people were dead who might otherwise have lived, though Madara didn't really care about that._

_But there were also some people who lived who would otherwise have died; half of the graduating class of the year Zabuza made his bloody entrance to the ranks, to be exact._

_Mori Satoshi was a talented ninjutsu-user and good at taijutsu. He quickly rose to the rank of a chuunin where he was promptly recruited for a special training for people with Intelligence potential. He reached the rank of jounin in a timely manner, but the life he led made him age before his time. There were strands of gray in his hair and wrinkles around his eyes when a young white-haired boy approached him in one of Kiri's ninja bars._

"You are too young to make that kind of career choice, brat. Go play ninja with your genin team."

"If you can't trust yourself to remember who you are, pick someone to remember it for you and do whatever they think you would do."

_Another man would have said something else. A butterfly's wings flapped, creating the tiniest current of air – but those have a way of growing, given time. The rest, as they say, is history. It is written in stone and cannot be changed._

**097. Writer's choice: Promise**

Naruto knew whose child he was and he was over the moon. His father was Namikaze Minato, the Yellow Flash and Naruto's greatest hero, and his mother was Uzumaki Kushina, the last Uzumaki, even though she hadn't actually been called the Last Uzumaki because people had a much smaller stick up their collective ass about the Uzumaki than about the Uchiha.

Or it could have been that his mother had tried to kick the first person to call her that in the head and screamed about _not wanting to be reminded, thank you very much, and she wasn't going to be the last because she was going to have children. And be Hokage, damn it!_ Or so Jiraiya-sensei told him. Naruto wondered how long his mother had continued to challenge his father to "friendly" training spars for taking the hat and decided to ask Jiraiya-sensei. Really, the only cloud in his sky was that he wasn't allowed to _tell people_.

"The hordes petty enough to take revenge on a dead man's son wouldn't even be your worst trouble," Jiraiya-sensei had said. "Not that there won't be plenty of those once the truth comes out. The real problem will be the people who look at your father and mother's respective careers and lineages and decide to pre-empt a re-enaction of the last war. You don't have a Kekkei Genkai, but there's nothing wrong with your bloodline. Or everything, depending on the point of view."

"Why care about that? It's not like there's a war brewing or anything," Naruto had complained, only to receive a flat stare.

"We are shinobi. There's always a war brewing," Jiraiya-sensei had said. So. He was keeping his mouth shut, as hard as it was. He had to leave the house even though it was well after midnight just to burn off some of the excitement and Naruto was absolutely sure he wouldn't going to sleep even then, but maybe he'd be able to sit down and not bother the others so much. That one room for sleeping was really inconvenient.

Once outside, Naruto noticed he wasn't the only person awake after all. The woman Jiraiya had brought with him, Tomomi, was sitting on the wall that separated the neighbouring geisha house from the safe house's yard and staring at the waning moon. She seemed colourless in the moonlight, even though the geisha house's lanterns shone red behind her, nothing but drab brown and paleness. Naruto's first thought was that he had thought Miwa-chan had taken her to sleep with the rest of the girls. His second thought was that she looked really, really sad.

"Hey, Tomomi-chan? Is something wrong?" he asked and hopped to sit on the wall next to her. "Did something bad happen?"

"I don't think that anything good can happen that will make you go missing-nin – though I'm not sure if I'm just presumed dead instead. I have a lover, you know? His name is Deidara and I have no idea where he is or if he even is still alive." Tomomi-chan gave the wall a vicious kick that actually made the old bricks crack a bit.

"What happened?" Naruto asked and patted her hand. He was actually a bit at loss because this wasn't how these things usually went. Some people initially ran away and some fought, but usually people didn't just talk to him like that without making things difficult for everyone at first. It was messing with his equilibrium.

"The Anbu of our village tried to kill me. Or – I'm not even sure of that; the man was dressed as an Anbu, but Tsuchikage-sama knew that we were together for more than seven months. So why make an issue out of it now? But whether it was Iwa or someone else doesn't change the outcome. Deidara tried to kill Tsuchikage-sama and blew up his tower. He can never return to Iwa now, and neither can I after running away with one of the Sannin to search for him. And since Jiraiya-san's network hasn't found him yet, all I can do is sit tight in Konoha with no idea of when they will trust me enough to let me out of the village. I never thought I would become a missing-nin for anything, but I guess we all have our price after all." Her voice was more tired than bitter. Naruto almost crowed that he didn't have a price and then patted himself to the back for thinking before he blurted out the first thing that popped into his head, for once. He did tell her his second thought, though.

"I'd just drag him back by the hair. I'll do it for you if I ever see him. What does he look like?" he asked and Tomomi-chan whirled around to stare at him. Naruto squirmed under her gaze; it felt like she could drill holes into his brain and read his thoughts at the same time. But he had promised and he wasn't going to back down. "Technically speaking I'm not supposed to tell strange ninja about this, but that cat's so out of the bag, it must be in another country by now and having little rumour kittens there. I would have dragged Sasuke back from Orochimaru if Kabuto hadn't brought him in that barrel, and I'm going to bring your Deidara back. This is the promise of a lifetime!"

"I think you will do your best," Tomomi-chan said with a puzzled voice. "You are Jiraiya-san's student, and apparently a jinchuuriki as well. A generous commitment from you, considering we only met today. I think that considering that promise, you can call me Tomomi-neechan, little brother." Then she smiled, and all of a sudden she didn't look quite so colourless anymore. Naruto was reminded that she was actually really pretty – though of course nothing that could be compared to Sakura-chan!

And he got to call her nee-chan! Other kids always had people they called nee-chan and nii-chan even though they weren't, not really, but no-one ever let Naruto call them that before. Iruka-sensei might have, but he was already Naruto's teacher at that point.

"Deidara has a slim build, and a beautiful face with slanted blue eyes and long blond hair that he wears in a half ponytail with the rest hanging down his back. Remember, he thinks I'm dead, so if you meet him, tell him… The first time we went out together I told him I can never keep my flowers alive. Bringing me a cactus to the hospital was a beautiful thought, but really, learning flower language first would have spared us from an embarrassing misunderstanding. He then went on to learn hanakotaba, ikebana, sumi-e and how to play shamisen. All of those skills were used in a mission he will deny to his dying day he ever took part in, and I will deny I kept a picture of him in a pink kimono. In the end, I gave him a cactus and later he blew up the potting soil, and that makes him officially even worse with flowers than I am."

Naruto wondered what sort of misunderstanding a cactus could cause and thought to ask. Then a misty memory about Sakura-chan talking with Ino about flowers surfaced and he blushed.

"Do you still have that picture, Tomomi-nee?" he asked instead and Tomomi-nee suppressed a snicker, shaking her head.

"Too bad, I had to leave it. That's what you gets for being prettier than your girlfriend," she said. Her smile got smaller and sadder, but didn't quite disappear. "The first time we were out of the village together, I was tortured because I wouldn't betray my village. Now we're missing-nin. This is the world we live in."

"Well, then it's up to us to make it a place worth fighting for, right?" He was the son of the Yondaime Hokage and Uzumaki Kushina, and he would not fail.

**098. Writer's Choice: Suna**

The hidden village of the Wind Country was named Sunagakure no Sato, the Village Hidden by Sand – but in truth Otogakure would have described the village quite well, even better than it suited Orochimaru's personal fiefdom. It was never quiet in Suna; the windmills that pumped water from the rivers deep under the bone-dry sands whined and rattled, the wind turbine generators whooshed as they spun electricity, and the gusty winds yowled between the houses. But noisy as the village was, the people were quiet. Temari claimed this was the nature of the Suna shinobi; to be as silent as the scorpions out in the desert and just as deadly.

Kankuro said that it was because they could barely hear their thoughts over the wind, let alone spoken words. There were days that Gaara was ready to buy to his brother's version. He and Temari were from the most prominent Suna lineage and they certainly had no inborn need to be quiet. They used to fall silent whenever Gaara stepped into the room, but they had almost wholly forgotten that terrified compliance now, and he preferred it that way. It had been one of the rare calm nights when Yashamaru tried to kill him; his ninja still became unmoving and silent in their attempt to not catch his attention, and while Gaara wasn't loud himself, listening to the silence of others stressed him.

"Most of them are pregnant," Temari complained in disgust as Gaara walked into his office. She was sitting in front of his desk with a stack of papers on her lap. Gaara sighed and wondered if Naruto had any idea of the amount of paperwork that awaited him when he achieved his dream.

"You say that like there was something wrong with getting pregnant," Kankuro said, with a cant to his voice that Gaara had realized meant that Kankuro was deliberately baiting Temari. It was strange how much he had learned of his siblings just by paying attention for the first time.

"I have nothing against pregnancy; I wouldn't be here if mother hadn't gotten pregnant. But those idiots get pregnant practically before they even start getting B-ranked missions and there goes a career down the drain." Temari snorted and Gaara knew that the idea filled her with disgust - why in heaven would anyone waste years spent training and survived near-misses just when they were on the verge of making something of themselves? "Besides, I have enough on my plate keeping you in line, Kankuro. Oh, and with the factions opposing Gaara, but you're even more bone-headed than they are. Oh, good morning, Gaara."

"Good morning, Temari, Kankuro," Gaara said and noticed how his appearance made Kankuro swallow his protests – and Temari's timing surely wasn't an accident. Gaara liked noticing things about his brother and sister. He would have tried to smile at them, but Temari had hesitantly asked that he only smile if his mouth did that on its own because "it didn't look right if it was forced". Kankuro had said that his grin fell just short of pants-pissing scary when he thought Gaara was out of hearing range, but this had been right at the beginning of their new, improved relationship and Gaara hadn't tried to smile since, so no other hurtful comments had been made.

It was difficult to be a people person. Maybe he could write to Naruto and ask for advice.

Gaara didn't make any motion to start a conversation. "I have a few A-ranked missions for you to look over," Temari said a short while later, handing the papers over the desk to him. The Suna mission office could approve all mission ranked D through B, but the Kazekage had to personally approve anything higher.

"And Number Four-and-Half has something he wants to speak about," Kankuro quipped, screwing a new poisoned needle into the hand of one of his smaller puppets. Temari didn't sigh as much as she whooshed.

"The poor man has a name too, you know," she said.

The poor man was named Yoshiro and he had been voted as the interim leader of Suna while the village had debated the matter of their next Kazekage. The man was a jounin and a good administrative leader, but had neither the skills nor the desire to become a kage, which had made him the man to keep the village in business and direct the reconstruction of the decimated ninja forces while the village council squabbled. Kankuro had named him Number Four-and-Half as a joke and it had stuck, much to the consternation of the man.

Yoshiro wound up sitting behind the Kazekage's desk for seven months since the councilors couldn't bring themselves into naming Gaara as Godaime, but were quite frankly out of options. Not only were even the strongest and most experienced shinobi in the village very leery of trying to take something Gaara clearly wanted, but the sad truth was that Suna had diminished greatly under the current daimyo's rule. Their strongest were too old for the job with the sole exception of Gaara, whose change of heart no one quite trusted just yet. Eventually the daimyo had started making noises about how the village didn't really _need_ a kage, that a good administrative leader was all that was needed these modern days and he had _just __the right_ cousin in mind – and now the Council couldn't push the hat on Gaara fast enough.

Somehow that didn't feel very satisfying, but at least Gaara had managed to convince Yoshiro that he was a changed man during the long weeks that constituted the change of guard in the office. The older shinobi had become Gaara's mentor in the bureaucratic side of the job, and Gaara rather liked him.

"And we need to set some kind of incentive for the kunoichi to wait longer until they start to make babies," Temari demanded. "We're still short on manpower after the invasion, and will be several years more; the last thing we need is for the young and promising to retire young to stay in the kitchen. Damn patriarchal societal norms about mothers being the only caretakers, and since when can't people at least hire nannies if they insist on spawning before they even hit their twenties anyway..."

Gaara stopped listening to her. He knew she could go on and on when she got like this, but there was also something at the edge of his hearing. Something light and melodic, a metallic sound. It came from outside the window.

"Like little bells," he mused and Temari shut up. Both she and Kankuro were accomplished ninja and they strained to hear what Gaara had, well aware that the strangest sounds could herald an assassination attempt.

"I think it's more like chimes," Kankuro said, but didn't relax as Gaara walked to the window. Suna didn't have tower like Konoha, but the Kazekage's building was still high and Gaara's office was at the highest floor. At first sight the crowd below him looked like strange white mushrooms.

It was a group of thirteen people, guarded by two shinobi openly and five more surreptitiously. They all wore the strangest get-up Gaara had ever seen on a civilian: a white straw hat that looked like an upside-down turned bowl that hid most of their face, entirely white clothes that had turned brownish with dust and a wooden staff. They were all holding wind chimes in their hands, and the winds played a tune.

"We have pilgrims here? Is there a civil war somewhere with an important temple or something?" Kankuro asked and leaned out of the window to see the pilgrims better.

"What are pilgrims?" Gaara asked, frowning. It was apparently one more thing that everyone was expected to know.

"They're people who travel to holy places so the gods will like them better," Kankuro explained and Temari made a small derisive noise deep in her throat. The ninja didn't have much use for religions as a general rule; those tended to have inconvenient rules like "Do Not Kill" and "Do Not Covet" and their job description mixed with that like oil mixed with water. But Naruto had gotten himself a cult of his own. Naruto always did things his way - but then, Gaara wasn't sure Naruto had ever actually killed anyone. He _was_ sure, however, that if he had, whoever it had been had thoroughly deserved it. Naruto hadn't even killed him and he had invaded Konoha.

"I want to believe in something. I wonder if those clothes are mandatory," he said and his siblings made strangled sounds. He wondered what deities Naruto's cult worshipped, if any. According to his intelligence people they mostly worshipped Naruto. The image of Naruto flailing around embarrassed and red-faced made him want to smile.

A knock on the door interrupted them before either Temari or Kankuro could tell what they thought of his spiritual leanings. It was Yoshiro, whole two hours before his appointment, and Gaara knew that he had been sent because he was the one Gaara was least likely to kill - his siblings excepted - and also because he wouldn't have protested.

"Kazekage-sama, we seem to have... pilgrims who have come to... that is, damn it." Yoshiro swore and wiped his hair off his forehead with the back of his hand, at a loss for words for the first time since Gaara had met him. "They are followers of Narutoism. Uzumaki Naruto has declared you a living saint who protects the world from the evil of the biju within you. They have requested to be allowed to meet you so that they can give you their offerings. And pray for your health and long life. And they want moral teachings."

Gaara went to them. Temari was trailing behind him as though she were in a trance, and Kankuro was griping about how that religion was screwed if Gaara was allowed to teach it morals, and in truth Gaara had some doubts himself. But these people wanted this, and it didn't seem like an unfair exchange. No one had ever prayed for his long life. He was certain that many had prayed to gods they didn't even believe in for a swift and sudden death instead.

"Just say what you think Naruto would say," Temari whispered just before the doors to the audience chamber opened.

There were eight women and five men in the audience chamber when Gaara entered. As one, they all knelt on the stone floor.

"Salutations to Him who stands up for the world; peaceful, independent and radiant. Pure like white camphor, the Incarnation of Compassion..." they chanted. One Anbu dropped off the ceiling.

The pilgrims extolled all kind of virtues that Gaara hadn't even known he had, starting with soft and religious-type things like compassion and truth, but then edging into the territory of strength and proving all these virtues via combat and it started making sense.

"Very much like Naruto," he concluded when the chanting ended, satisfied.

"Gaara-sama, I am Risa, the leader of our pilgrimage. In the name of all our Makimura sisters and brothers I wish to present you with these chimes so that their sound may drive away evil spirits, and with prayers for your good health and long life," one of the women said and rose from the floor, collecting all the wind chimes before walking to Gaara, her eyes respectfully downcast. She appeared the oldest of them, with gray strands in her dark hair. "I also wish to tell you of the marvelous meeting on our way here. A young man happened upon our company and he was revealed to be the good brother of Yondaime Raikage and the jinchuuriki of Gyuuki, Killer B. He couldn't enter the village, but he wishes to meet with you as well."

"Kazekage-sama!" One of the Anbu materialized out of a genjutsu, walking briskly to them and wringing his hands. "Your safety..."

"Wait, didn't he go missing?" Kankuro asked. "Again. Except Raikage didn't declare him missing-nin for some reason. He just wants him back, yesterday."

The door to the balcony was opened by another Anbu and a strong gust of wind got in, making the chimes Gaara was holding by their strings jingle. Ting-a-ling-a-ling, went the chimes. It was a new sound, and Gaara cherished it. It was a sound that meant people he had never met, who lived in a country he had never been to, had walked for thousands of miles just to express their wish that he would not be eaten by an evil spirit. Naruto had promised him that if he chose to protect people he would eventually be accepted. He hadn't expected it to be by Tea Country, but he wasn't going to complain.

"When Naruto redeems a promise, he doesn't settle for half measures. I will meet with Killer B," he spoke and found he was smiling. It wasn't like one of Naruto's grins that he had tried to emulate before, but much smaller. It felt right, however, and no-one flinched from the face of it.

"Kazekage-sama, please!"

_Ting-a-ling-a-ling!_

**099. Writer's Choice: Makimura**

Makimura had done Naruto a lot of good. The bombs were a given. First Idate, then Gai had straightened out his taijutsu, and Konatsu-chan had taught him some wicked water jutsu while Tsubaki had gone over some basics he hadn't bothered to learn in the Academy but had turned out to be kind of necessary as the basis for learning other things. On top of all that, Makimura ended up making Naruto rich. The yakuza family that he destroyed had been wealthy and Naruto had taken all that money as prize to help the girls he had saved. He really used it practically, down to the last ryo, to turn the old bordellos into inns and to form the fire brigade fund, and thought it money well spent because his new friends were safe and settled now.

But the thing about investments is, they're supposed to make more money, and Naruto had some very devoted employees. The casino boat and the inns soon started to bring in money and even after the necessary cost of running a business and the wages there was a nice amount of money over budget every month. And Naruto never came to Makimura to draw money from the account, so it added up. Konatsu wanted to wager on how long it would take until Naruto realized he was rich and how much he would care, but Kaede said no. He knew a sucker's bet when he heard one.

Also, there were religious paintings of Naruto now and while most of those were as accurate as the sculptures of the Hokage Mountain, some people managed to recognize Naruto from them. People handing him rice because apparently bowls of rice should be handed to holy people confused him, but protecting them from bandits and such he at least understood.

Konatsu and Kaede ended up staying in Makimura. Konatsu decided that the climate was nice, really, and even if the place was rather boring now that Naruto had left, that was a challenge, not a hindrance. Besides, Kaede liked it there. They continued to train the fire brigade together, along with Idate, until it had become the only fire brigade in the world that doubled as a paramilitary force. None of the girls reached chuunin level of skill, but as a band of mercenaries and the shipping magnate who had hired them found out, even genin level was more than enough to deal with non-shinobi. Together they managed to give the poor police chief gray hairs, but Takumo consoled himself, thinking that at least the instigator had left before he could make things any worse.

His wife read a letter to him breakfast. "You have been made an honorary member of the fire brigade, because Satou felt bad he thought you were a chauvinist."

Many words not fit to be repeated followed.

Idate negotiated a shipping contract between the Wasabi family and Naruto's enterprise and he remained in Makimura to court Miwa. He finally got her to agree to go on a date at try number seventeen – which didn't yet mean Miwa had fallen in love with him, he realized, but he was working on it. And at least Miwa's religious fervour and devotion scared away any potential competition.

The Great Naruto Fire Brigade became a tourist attraction entirely by accident. A year after it was established, one of the big pavilions built by the sea caught fire during the Mermaid Festival. Because half the fire brigade was there already to party, it was very quickly taken care of. Also, very flashily. The tourists got soaked, but they found the real jutsu the most fascinating thing they had ever seen. The fire brigade was mostly annoyed by the crowd taking pictures of them when they were trying to do their job, and so they began to organize fire drills to give them something to ogle when it was safe and keep them away when there really was a fire.

Firefighting became a traditional women's profession in two years. Everybody agreed that it was the quickest gender normative tradition ever to be formed.

Miwa continued to happily spread Narutoism and organize the Church of Naruto. She didn't know a good number of the people who came to her were agents of foreign countries who tried to figure out what Konoha's ploy was, but she would have answered the questions the same way even then. A woman who is absolutely sure that she's in the right is a force to be reckoned with. Those agents reported the Church of Naruto believed in world peace and the communal hobby was making explosives out of foodstuff. This was, according to the High Priestess, entirely logical and just.

**100. Writer's Choice: Konoha**

Naruto gained a small following in Konoha. It was more of a moral support thing for Tsubaki, Kakashi, Hinata, Neji and the Ichirakus than anything else, but Sai took the religion entirely seriously and managed to convert the rest of the Rootlets – like Tsubaki dubbed her and Iruka's new charges – to his point of view, much to Iruka's consternation. He refused to join even as a joke because as a teacher it was his responsibility to present good example and teach children that joining cults was _bad_ and there his good effort went down the drain. He managed to separate Sai from the children before he took to explaining about tantric sex rituals and considered that a small victory; Sai had yet to learn that such concepts as "age appropriate subjects" existed for a reason, and that while answering questions honestly could be a good thing...

Gai and Lee seriously converted to Narutoism, though not actually because they were true believers – unless one was to argue that challenges were a religious matter to the two. Gai happened to bug Kakashi about picking a challenge one morning, after Kakashi had just returned from a week-long mission and wanted to just sleep another week. Sleep deprivation always did terrible things to Kakashi's sense of humour and so he named being a good, devoted cultist as his challenge before shunshining away. He regretted this dearly once he woke up the next day, but the damage had already been done. Because Naruto's whereabouts were a secret, they made their pilgrimage to Suna where Lee bonded with a baffled Gaara and caused his Anbu bad headaches. Several of them developed a phobia of intervillage incidents because Lee insisted on sparring with the Kazekage. He kept losing, but that didn't discourage him at all.

Tsunade got very, very drunk when she heard of this. For once, Shizune didn't scold her.

No-one could understand why Hyuuga Hiashi allowed Hinata and Neji to remain even titular members of the cult and the only one brave or stupid enough to ask – one Inuzuka Tsume – wasn't interested enough to bother finding out. It might have had something to do with a training spar which had ended in Hinata actually beating Neji, and Neji had smiled, _congratulating_ her.

Cleaning up after Danzo was a nightmare and a half. Many former Anbu were called into service again just to get a little more manpower to sort through the mess that was Root, Kakashi among them. This caused a bit of a problem because many of the old masks had been returned to the circulation and so Kakashi wound up with the codename and mask Dove for two weeks. He found and destroyed two stashes, but Ibiki still has blackmail pictures.

It took Iruka and Tsubaki a better part of a year to sort out the Rootlets, but eventually they were deemed as sane as anyone ever got in Konoha. They celebrated this with a wonderfully quiet movie night and a bottle of sake and wound up in the same bed – only sleeping, because they were drunk and Iruka was the responsible sort, despite Tsubaki's best attempts to rectify this. They started dating and now that they actually had some free time, they became friends with Taiki and Tomomi, who had in turn bonded over settling in with the local loons also known as Konoha nin.

Sasuke got away with becoming a missing-nin with what was practically a slap on the wrist, by shinobi standards anyway. This was partly because of the Sharingan, partly because Tsunade was a big softie when it became to Naruto and Sakura, partly because she got to vicariously redeem a fallen teammate, and last but not least: because the whole Uchiha Massacre had been an atrocity that never should have happened and had screwed a small boy's head up very badly and Sasuke should have been forced into therapy no matter how much he didn't want to go, damn it. He got a year's probation and his clearance was revoked for that time. He wasn't allowed to leave Konoha. It was made clear to him that he was under surveillance so strict that if he talked in his sleep, wrote a shopping list or greeted a grocer, the T&I would receive a detailed report. He also had to go to therapy – which he considered part of the punishment. He continued his training, though, because Tsunade wasn't stupid.

Of course, Karin following him to the village and defecting wound up being a punishment as well because in a fit of pettiness, Tsunade disregarded all advice and housed her with him. She regretted that decision as soon as Sakura found out, however.

Kabuto remained Kabuto. He made everyone nervous and the only ones who trusted him were Konohamaru and his friends, who were elated someone called their Naruto-niichan "Naruto-sama". He was sent into therapy as well, but he frustrated his therapists because he knew all the right answers to the questions they asked and didn't trust them enough to actually let them help. Kabuto was always unfailingly polite to Iruka and while he was polite to everyone, he almost managed to not be unnerving with Iruka. Iruka paid this back by being supportive, more for Naruto's sake than anything else, but Kabuto appreciated this a lot more than if Iruka had done so for his sake so it worked out, kind of.

Outside Konoha things became even more complicated. Orochimaru fumed because he had lost both his new designer body and his right hand in one fell swoop. He made several attempts to contact Sasuke again, as well as catch up to Naruto and exact some well-deserved revenge (and that special Uzumaki chakra was interesting as well, come to think of it), but Jiraiya grudgingly accepted assistance from Kabuto, and they managed to keep Orochimaru preoccupied with defending his foothold in the Rice Country. It is a sad day indeed, Jiraiya bitched to Tsunade in one of his letters, when Orochimaru could be considered small potatoes.

The other great hidden villages interpreted Narutoism as an attempt to seduce their jinchuuriki into defecting and gain political and financial influence in their countries and that went down as well as one might expect. Not all such consequences were negative. Tsunade's reputation had taken a serious hit during the years she wasted gambling and drinking, and now she established reputation as a brazen, magnificent bitch – crazy of course as well, but then, had there ever been a wholly sane Hokage? Entirely by accident, Naruto had managed to convince the Elemental Countries that Konoha was back at the top of her game again.

The Raikage was furious, though, because his brother had been entangled in the mess. Iwa collectively wasn't too impressed when the Yellow Flash was declared a saint. Kiri didn't like Naruto appropriating one of their hunter-nin, made worse by the fact that while Taiki hadn't been particularly famous, he was a very good jonin and they were suffering shortage of manpower. Good hunter-nin didn't grow on trees, and it took years and years to train a small percentage of all available ninja to that level of skill! Daimyo Kazahana Koyuki had always favoured Konoha, but now her reaction to Naruto highlighted this favouritism, causing a lot of bitterness - made worse by the fact that no one could claim Naruto hadn't earned it. The Wind daimyo got all bitchy too, and Tsunade praised every higher power who might deign to listen to a ninja - and wasn't Jashin - that Gaara didn't actually mind.

The jinchuuriki's opinion wasn't asked, and if they did say anything useful, it was anything appropriate, it could only be a lie, right?

And then there was Akatsuki.

* * *

AN: And we are done! Thank you to BiblioMatsuri again.

And watch out for the sequel! I have yet to come up with a clever name for one, but I have planned a short story where a few people find out about Narutoism and have reactions, Karin realizes that she has family she's on the same side with and decides a bonding experience is in order, while Naruto manages to get into another strange situation.


End file.
